WARNING: The following contains spoilers from the horror-monster film What Lies Below, streaming now on Netflix.
Some horror fans were so upset by the end of What Lies Below that they've reached out to its writer/director, Braden R. Duemmler, to explain its ending and confirm their fan theories.
What Lies Below debuted in Netflix's top spot on April 6, bringing both buzz and hate mail, according to Duemmler. "It's just been non-stop, dealing with all these messages," the director told EW. "I'm getting a lot of hate messages, so it's like, do I click on it?"
Duemmler's debut film tells the story of 16-year-old Liberty Wells (Ema Hovarth) returning from camp to meet her mother Michelle's (Mena Suvari) new boyfriend (Trey Tucker), John Smith, an aquatic geneticist. However, as Liberty becomes closer to her mom's incredibly attractive scientist boyfriend, she learns he's not a man, but something horrific.
When asked to elaborate on the film's ending, specifically, what John is, the director answered, "I've heard the [cat] is out the bag because, if you put on the subtitles, it apparently says 'Alien noises.' I would say he is a species from another planet... If you missed anything, maybe go back to the time that Libby drives the car down to see into the lake and look at what she sees."
After being pressed for further clarification to the film's ending, he also revealed that John is an alien who is looking for the "genetic anomaly" of redheads to do experiments on -- which includes both Liberty and Michelle -- and by the film's end, he's successfully taken Liberty aboard his spaceship for further tests.
For fans who wanted to know why Liberty is smiling at the end -- after being trapped in a diagonal container filled with water -- he provided some hope for her future, noting, "She can breathe underwater and she realizes it."
However, Liberty's ability to breathe is not because John succeeded in impregnating her -- as fan theories have suggested and as he was trying to do with her mother. "No, no, she hasn't been impregnated yet," he clarified. "She's been brought for further experiments. The blue light is the apparatus that allows things to breathe underwater."
Written and directed by Braden R. Duemmler, What Lies Below stars Ema Horvath, Mena Suvari, Trey Tucker and Haskiri Velazquez. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Source: EW