What do you think of a film that appears to be high-end Hollywood fare but was filmed on a low budget? The Void, a Canadian horror film, fully fits the description, and it’s incredible how much filmmaker pair Jeremy Gilespie and Steven Kostanski managed to cram into one film.
The financial constraints were so severe that the creature effects had to be crowd-funded, yet there is something interesting about the storey that has horror lovers thrilled. The Void is more of a cosmic horror film, and fans of Hellraiser and The Thing may see some parallels.
The producers clearly intended for the film to have an 80s feel to it: from the animals to the frightening moments, it’s all a homage to horror classics with a modern gloss. But what this film excels at is making the most of uncertainty. The mystery is left open to interpretation, and the creators don’t provide you any answers.
We’ll walk you through this interesting work of art in this video, and we’ll try to explore the many possibilities that the storey has opened up! We’ll go over the plot’s highs and lows, attempting to understand the bizarre chain of events that makes The Void such a spectacle.
The Void – a nightmarish realm from the world beyond!
The movie starts off with a boom, and the first scene is engulfed in mystery. We observe a remote residence with two occupants, a guy and a lady, attempting to flee the premises. They are being pursued by two armed guys and stumble outdoors in panic.
Although the lady is shot and injured, the male manages to flee into the darkness of the night. The two armed men douse her in gasoline and burn her to death, and we see them getting in their car to go after the guy.
While all this unfolds, a mysterious figure in a white robe stands watching the events from a distance. Its entire body is covered by the cloth, and there is a black triangle at the center of its face!
The narrative then shifts to Daniel Carter, a police officer on duty and patrolling in his squad car. When the man who had previously fled creeps out of the bushes, he double-checks with dispatch. Daniel first assumes it’s a drunk, but upon closer study, he notices the person is gravely hurt.
He inquires with dispatch about quick medical help possibilities, and he is saddened to learn that the nearest hospital, which was recently damaged by fire, may not be ready to manage such a catastrophic crisis.
However, the next hospital is quite a distance away, and Daniel doesn’t take any chances with the patient. He reluctantly heads to the nearest option, and just as Daniel brings the man through the front door, the active medical personnel jump into action. The nurse summons Dr. Richard Powell and another nurse named Beverly, and together they take the man away for further treatment.
Meanwhile, we meet Maggie, a pregnant young girl, and her grandfather Ben, who are expecting her to give birth at any moment. Because the characters are well-acquainted with each other, it appears that everyone knows everyone in this little town.
The doctor discovers unusual needle marks on the man’s arms and immediately recognises him as an addict. The nurse we met before brings Daniel coffee after he wipes off the bloodstains on his clothing. Allison is Daniel’s estranged wife, and we discover her name is Allison.
Dr. Powell interrupts their meeting, and when Allison leaves, he tells Daniel to let go of his grief. The doctor lost his own daughter, and he knows how overwhelming the loss can be. His only advice to Daniel is to go easy on Allison because the couple apparently lost their child during the delivery process.
Kim, an intern, is chatting with one of the patients and plainly irritated with her duties in this understaffed hospital on the verge of closure. Kim exits the room when the patient informs her that he would like to sleep. Daniel wanders around the vacant hospital till he comes upon the patient’s room.
Beverly, the nurse we saw earlier, is standing beside him, and something doesn’t seem quite right. As he draws nearer, he notices Beverly has stabbed the patient in the eye with a pair of scissors. It’s a horrible scene as she slowly takes the blades out, and as we turn around, we see that she’s mangled her entire face, taking the flesh.
She seems to be in a trance and tells Daniel that it is not her actual face, and despite repeated pleas from Daniel to stop, she keeps approaching him. He is compelled to shoot her, and she dies on the spot! The other nurses and Dr. Powell rush in at the sound of gunfire, and they find Daniel in a dazed state.
He is traumatized by what happened in the course of time and moves to the nearest bathroom where he passes out briefly. During this time, he has strange visions of a dark and desolate landscape with a mysterious black triangular mass.
When Daniel regains consciousness, he realises that he needs to report the incident right away. Dr. Powell and Allison, on the other hand, advise him to take things slowly, and he learns that a state policeman has arrived on the scene.
Mitchell, the officer, discloses that he is looking into a strange mass murder at a neighbouring residence, and the man Daniel brought in has clear ties to the crime. Daniel is still adamant on reporting the event, so he exits the hospital and walks outside to his parked car.
However, the communication systems are down, and he notices a strange humanoid creature out in the distance. This being wears a white robe and wears a black triangle over its face. A confused Daniel tries to talk to it, but he is shocked by the sound of a loud foghorn at a distance.
If you have watched Game of Thrones, the sound is uncannily similar to the horns blown at the Night’s Watch when the wildlings or White Walkers arrived! The lights of the hospital flicker and the thing suddenly attacks Daniel. He is taken aback, and although he pushes off the attacker, there is a puncture wound on his chest.
He makes it back inside the hospital but passes out from the incessant bleeding. Dr. Powell, Kim, and Allison treat his wound, and he is startled awake by a scream from the junkie’s chamber.
Mitchell and Daniel rush there, only to find that Beverly has morphed into some kind of tentacle monster and is attacking the druggie. They manage to free him just in time and lock the creature in the chamber.
To make matters worse, they realise that the hospital has been encircled by a mystery group of people dressed identically. We watch the two men from the first scene enter the hospital as everyone is terrified.
The duo holds everyone at gunpoint and demands that the junkie be immediately handed over to them. We later learn that the two men are father and son, and for the rest of the narrative, we will call them that!
Everyone attempts to calm things down, but the junkie manages to hold Maggie hostage and slit her neck with a scalpel. Dr. Powell approaches him at this difficult time, attempting to calm him down.
However, the addict stabs him in the neck, and he falls to his death on the floor. Beverly, who has transformed into a tentacled monster, assaults Mitchell at this point and puts her tentacles into his throat. Mitchell’s head is chopped off in the process as the father and son assault the beast with an axe.
Having seen the fate of Beverly, they take Mitchell’s body and set it on fire before rolling it outside the clinic’s premises. The father tells everyone that the last time they trusted someone, his son got injured badly, and we get a hint that in the past, there has been more of the horror that is unraveling now. Probably due to this injury, the son cannot speak more than a few sounds!
Maggie begins to have labour pains, and Allison is eager to go to the medicinal storage closet and grab some of the items that might be able to aid her. On the other hand, while firing at the creature that assaulted Mitchell, father and son ran out of ammo.
Daniel has a shotgun strapped in his car, and he intends to get the gun along with the ammunition in the trunk. Stepping out of the hospital is risky business, but it is a risk that they must be willing to take if they are to have any chance of surviving the nightmare!
They take a cautious step outside and find Daniel’s car has slid further away. Fortunately, the hooded individuals are not visible, and they rush to collect the rifle and ammunition. The father, on the other hand, observes a hooded person at a distance, and when the car’s headlights are turned on, they are startled to see a large group of people discreetly waiting close with knives.
One of them attacks the son, and Daniel manages to free the gun just in time to shoot the cloaked assailant dead. They run back inside, and it is clear that there will be no escaping the situation with the building surrounded.
Meanwhile, Allison goes to the pharmaceutical storage room by herself, and as she gathers the items she requires, we notice Dr. Powell behind her, the same doctor that was stabbed to death not long ago! When Daniel and the father-son duo enter, they discover Dr. Powell’s body is missing and rush to the storage room to get Allison.
Unfortunately, she is no longer present, leaving just her suitcase behind. They uncover Dr. Powell’s office within which is a tin box filled with disturbing Polaroid pictures of naked women and mutilated bodies. The phone in the room rings, and when Daniel answers the call, Powell reveals that he has some amazing plans for Allison, and Daniel should submit to him instead of trying to fight.
They all agree to question the addict, threatening to smash his fingers off if he doesn’t give them the information they want. The addict discloses that he knows nothing in particular, and it appears like a cult is at work here.
He was enticed into the mansion by the promise of crystal meth, but once inside, he discovered a hell! The cultists would see the addicts fornicating and then sacrifice them in cruel ceremonies.
The guy managed to survive because the father-son duo happened to attack the house and killed everyone present there. We later learn that the father and son had gone there to get their revenge because the cult had sacrificed their family.
The three guys and the druggie make their way to the hospital’s burned-out part, where they discover a maze-like room with a large triangle and several other symbols on the floor. Allison is then strapped on an operating table as the scene shifts. Dr. Powell stands close, back to her, mutilating himself while he describes how he came to be in this state.
The tragedy of his daughter’s death prompted him to seek answers concerning life beyond death. As a result, he embarked on a journey to try to convert himself into something far bigger than his human existence. As a result, he was able to reach a point where his kid might be revived.
He probably encountered some force that showed him the way, and since then, he formed a cult to help him achieve his goal. He has conducted numerous experiments since then, and it turns out that even the hospital fire was the doing of some of his unsuccessful creations.
These creatures desired to die, but he forcibly kept them alive. He discloses that Allison is going to turn into something greater than herself, and when the sheets are removed, we see her engorged stomach with something moving around inside!
Meanwhile, Daniel and the others come into a chamber that looks like a butcher, complete with mangled bodies strewn around. The odour is overwhelming, and the bodies are those that Dr. Powell used in his experiments.
They’ve hardly recovered from the shock of the chamber when odd sights appear. The picture of his deceased wife, for example, disturbs the father, and the cadavers around appear to attack them.
They fight them off, but the father is disturbed to see his wife holding their baby. The son follows him, as he walks off in a disillusioned state. Daniel and the junkie try to flee, but one of the creatures grabs the junkie and smashes his head against the floor.
Maggie’s health worsens at the main hospital, so our attention is focused there. Kim is compelled to attempt a C-section despite having little experience with the technique. She begins to feel anxious, and her grandfather encourages her to be brave and go with the procedure.
However, in a sudden turn of events, we see Maggie slitting the throat of her grandfather. We come to the haunting realization that Maggie is also a part of the cult, and she is carrying Dr. Powell’s baby. The cultists break into the hospital with no resistance, and Kim manages to hide in a cabinet.
In another scene, the boy follows his father down the tunnels, which, to their surprise, turn into their house. The father is seen lamenting the loss of his wife and infant child, and he is enraged with his son for failing to protect them. He is able to break free from the delusion thanks to his kid, and he regains consciousness.
Daniel is seeing visions in which he sees his pregnant wife on the operation table, which helps him cope with the loss of his kid. The illusion dissolves just as he attempts to console his wife, and he sees a hideous form of Allison with an exploded stomach and tentacles all over the room. Dr. Powell reminds Daniel that she had been given what she always desired and made into a mother. Daniel battles his pain and uses the ax to hack Allison!
He finds himself in a room with a lit triangle, where he is lectured by Dr. Powell on his theories. He offers him a spot in his cult and claims that everyone else has gathered to witness the transformation for themselves.
Daniel, he claims, may even reclaim his kid if he is ready to die first. Maggie arrives from behind and stabs Daniel in the back when he refuses. We see him collapse from the impact, and Dr. Powell transforms into a horrendous skinless, inhuman form.
He states that he has finally found a way to restore his daughter, and after a horrifying birthing process, Maggie gives birth to a twisted creature which Dr. Powell calls his child!
The father and son are fleeing from a monster, and the father is caught. As the creature pushes the tentacles inside his body, he manages to douse himself in flammable liquid and requests the son to set him ablaze. The son obeys.
Dr. Powell attempts one final time to persuade Daniel, promising him a life with Allison if he agrees. Daniel, on the other hand, grabs Powell and drags him into the triangular gap of light with all of his remaining power. They, as well as the triangle, vanish. This appears to cause the entire structure to rumble and disintegrate.
The son is being chased by the half-burned creature through a hallway that keeps getting narrower. Eventually, the monster is crushed between the walls, and the son jumps out into the main hospital premises just in time. He finds Kim hiding in the cabinet, and the two try to comfort each other after everything!
Daniel and Allison are shown holding hands in the last shot, standing in the same dark and dreary terrain that Daniel saw earlier in his vision. A massive floating black pyramid can be seen in the distance, and it’s unclear where they’ve landed up!
The Twisted Ending
This film is like a jigsaw with certain missing parts that the filmmakers purposefully left out of the final product. The open-ended conclusion may be interpreted in a variety of ways, and various fan ideas have already surfaced. We’ll provide our own, and it’ll be up to you to choose which one you like!
Was it all in Daniel’s mind?
We’ve all heard of limbo, a comatose state of mind in which a person experiences weird happenings while asleep. This condition may generate some strange visions that defy explanation, and we believe it’s possible that Daniel was hallucinating the whole incident!
If you look attentively, you can see that the nurse’s mental condition was severely harmed as a result of the gunshot. It’s reasonable to infer that the nurse went insane and killed the patient. Daniel never regained his composure when she assaulted him and he shot her.
When he was knocked unconscious short in his disturbed state, we saw him experiencing bizarre visions! What if he never fully recovered from it? The initial slaughter could just be some thugs or cultists, and the junkie any regular addict who escaped the crossfire.
It might seem a tad far-fetched, but it is likely that such a traumatizing condition would make Daniel witness his worst fears! He never really recovered after losing his child, and the impact shows in his dreams throughout the narrative. It might seem a bit out of line, and is certainly a buzz-kill, but do give it some thought guys!
Was it all in the Hellraiser Universe?
Fans of the Hellraiser franchise will have to agree on this. We’ve previously discussed the film’s obvious impact. The scenario where the walls close in and the portal totally shuts off just as one of the characters escapes has never been seen before! But what if there’s more going on in the tale than simply influence?
What if the whole infernal realm is identical to the one shown in Hellraiser? The infamous cenobites might be called from another dimension and do business on our planet before returning to their own. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Dr. Powell was a cenobite himself.
Following the death of his daughter, he ventured into uncharted territory, where he may have come into contact with the Leviathan! If you look closely, you’ll see that he and Pinhead have some striking resemblance!
After his transformation, he clearly looks like Pinhead without all the pins. If he is a cenobite leader, it explains all the things he could do! His disciples are simply cenobites from that alternate dimension, and he can bring forth horrifying creatures to do his bidding. Pinhead had a deep, dark secret himself and Dr. Powell had no less.
The plane where we see Daniel and Allison in at the end could be the corners of that Hell with the huge pyramid-shaped triangle being the Leviathan. Maybe, it was an attempt to take over our world, but Daniel’s heroics ruined the plans. We have to say that this is something to consider seriously, given how everything pans out!
Is it all the doing of The Thing?
If there’s one thing the creatures have in common, it’s their look! Those who have seen and appreciated The Thing know that it has the ability to morph into many forms. What if the Thing gained control of Dr. Powell during his most vulnerable moments? The Thing doesn’t reveal his identity until it’s absolutely necessary, and there was no need to change or transfer bodies until Dr. Powell was slain.
Indeed, this made us consider the prospect of numerous things conspiring to take over the globe. If we suppose that Dr. Powell is the Thing, and that many others are as well, they may just be cooperating to infect the others.
Is there anyone else you recall seeing around town? Right from the patrolling duties to the journey to the hospital, there is absolutely no one else apart from the characters, and it could mean that the takeover had been almost complete.
The initial sketches for the Thing clearly resemble the tentacled monsters that we saw in this movie. The horrible mutilations are the experiments they have been conducting to perfect their mutation.
The element of cosmic horror in the narrative is quite clear, and that would further explain bringing in some strange entity trying to take over humanity. In the end, Daniel managed to send them all back to their realm, but he is stuck there himself along with his wife – the ultimate sacrifice for mankind!
Egyptian God of Death
Egyptian mythology differs from even the most inventive horror films, and it may hold the key to understanding the parallel dimension. Many Egyptian Gods are said to be capable of guiding the souls of the deceased through the afterlife. The afterlife was known as the underworld, and it had just one entrance: the deceased’s tomb.
The soul would be judged by Osiris, and those who earned a tranquil afterlife would be awarded it. It would make sense if the cultists were engaging in Egyptian rites. Those who are culpable will face terrible consequences, and Dr. Powell might be one of them. He is trying to gain more subjects by summoning strange creatures and numerous souls during his existence on Earth.
The pyramid or the mysterious triangle that plays such a crucial role in the movie could simply be a doorway to the other world. So what happens to Daniel and his wife according to this theory? Well, they are probably in the peaceful afterlife, having successfully sent Dr. Powell back to where he belonged! That does explain the absence of any threatening entity in the last scene and it almost looks peaceful!
Our Final Words
We maybe went a bit too far with our creative licence here, but let us know which one comes closest to being a real possibility in the comments area. The directors have said unequivocally that they are not interested in pursuing a sequel, implying that the plot would be abandoned for forever.
If something is up for interpretation, what’s the harm in thinking out of the box! We do wish they came up with something to explain it all because The Void is too interesting a production to be left on a cliffhanger!