Opening Image

We see a young woman run out of her house in distress, being pursued by an unseen force. Her father and neighbor try to help her, but she knows they can’t. Instead she simply drives away to the beach. While spending the night in solitude, she calls her parents and apologizes to them for being immature. In the morning, we see her corpse, horribly mutilated.

Set Up

Before we meet Jay Height, we catch a glimpse of the area outside her house, the road is littered with what appears to be birthday hats, the pavements have a children’s game drawn onto it and at the front door, we see her friend Paul knocking, all of which implies she’s still a child at heart and when it comes to her, Paul’s always outside looking in respectively.

In the backyard, we see Jay climb into the pool and float peacefully, while watching creatures like a squirrel and birds who mean her no harm. Throughout the movie, we see water and waterbodies serving as a symbol of security, where Jay has nothing to fear. Even when an ant makes it onto her arm, she can simply drown it and continue being at peace. By the pool, we also see a can of cola, a drink mostly associated with children.

She sees her neighbor’s kids watching her, but she doesn’t mind and instead finds it amusing. The kids on the other hand, long to be older, perhaps old enough to be with her. Inside the house, we see her, Paul, Yara and Kelly watching a black and white movie, with acts as a representation of a simpler time. Despite being young adults, they still appears to have a bit of growing up to do as Jay tries to annoy her sister, Kelly by letting the water in her hair fall on her, while Yara makes a fart joke.

Jay is seen getting ready for a date and applies lipstick before leaving, a sign of maturity. At the movies, she plays a game with her date, Hugh where they picture trading lives with a stranger and he picks a child as they have their whole lives ahead of them while having the benefit of having their parents guide them every step of the way. They abruptly leave after Hugh sees someone approaching them.

The next day, Jay walks back home with Kelly as she smokes a cigarette while they both drink cola, showing they long to be older but their inner selves aren’t ready yet.

Catalyst

Later on, we see her on another date with Jay, as they have a picnic by a river, creating a false sense of security for her, which tricks her into having sex with him. After which, she muses about how she always wanted to be older when she was a child and now that she is, she’s doesn’t know what she is to do with herself, meanwhile Hugh comes up behind her and knocks her out with chloroform. As this transpires, she’s seen running her hand gently through some flowers, only the same hand to abruptly disturb the flowers as she falls unconscious, which is a reference to deflowering, where it happened like she expected it to, but isn’t ready for what’s comes after.

When she finally comes to, Hugh explains what’s been passed to her and what she must to do to live. Back home, we see Kelly, Yara and Paul playing a game that involves them picking character cards at random, referencing how they can never know who will pursue them now that the curse has been passed. Also, they’re once again seen drinking cola.

From the book she’s reading, Yara explains how when once is faced with inevitable destruction, all they can do it accept their fate and succumb to it for escape is not an option. While this is a direct connection to the curse, it’s also about how Jay is now thrust into a world of adulthood, unprepared.

Debate

The cops are soon called over but are unable to help her as no crime has been committed, it also tells the group that they can’t rely on adults and have to face this on their own. Jay is seen looking at a tattoo of the letter ‘X’ on her finger, meaning she’s now marked.

Break into two

We see that she hasn’t been eating, while downstairs, we see her childhood photos on the wall, representing the person she still is.

B story

While alone in the bathroom, she’s inspects her genitals with a remorseful feeling of having been violated. While doing so, her neighbor’s kid tosses a ball to her window startling her. The same kid is also seen spying on her through the window, as she drinks tap water to calm herself down. This scene can be interpreted in two ways, one, that the curse will follow her relentlessly to the point where she’s can never be alone and that her survival depends on going back to the sanctity childhood offers, more on this in the following paragraphs.

Fun and Games

At school, she sees a woman in her nightwear walking towards her. While this happens, we hear her teacher recite a poem telling us that Jay’s been living in a comfortable world so far and has no means or knowledge to defend herself from the coming threats. Jay responds by running away from school, a place meant to segue one into adulthood to an ice cream parlor, where you’d always find kids. She’s also seen mixing two flavors together, an act that’s irreversible, much like what led her to being cursed.

Paul offers to stay over and they talk about the past, how they were each other’s first kiss and how their curiosities would get the better of them in those days. This also establishes what Jay needs to do to ensure survival, by being with Paul, as had they stayed together, the curse would have never passed on to her. They hear a window being broken and Jay is soon chased by people only see can see, when they have a moment to catch their breaths, she asks if anyone has water.

The chase gets to a point where the house is no longer safe and so she takes her bike and runs to a nearby playground, insinuates going back to one’s childhood. Her neighbor and classmate, Greg offers to help with finding Hugh. They drive to the abandoned house where he was hiding and within a copy of a dirty magazine, Paul finds a picture of Hugh with who appears to be his girlfriend. The magazine serves as a physical representation of what kids their age would want, while the photograph represents what they need instead. We also see Greg checking out Yara, implying that his intentions aren’t all that noble.

Midpoint

Having traced the picture back to Hugh’s high school, they learn his real name. We also see Paul being jealous of Greg, it relates to the theme as the former represents the past while the latter, the future.

They find out where Jeff lives and are seen sitting in his backyard with colas like a bunch of kids. He tells them how he’s still scarred despite having passed the curse, and if it isn’t passed on to someone else, it’ll work it’s way backwards up to whoever started it all. While he says this, we see Jay pick blades of grass and place them in a row, a representation of how the curse has formed a queue of people of the mix of people in the world.

Bad guys close in

When asked if his mother would be upset he isn’t home, Greg replies that she doesn’t care. They drive up to his family’s lake house and do what Jeff did at the abandoned place, a couple of kids playing house. Greg has a gun and Jay practices firing it by shooting sugary cereal boxes, a act representing killing of one’s past self. While pretending to be adults, they’re also seeing drinking something other than cola for a change. Greg is seen checking out Kelly as well.

While Greg walks away for a bit, Yara tells them to get into the water, but Jay no longer feels safe there. She’s then attacked and the others witness it, but Greg doesn’t as he’s viewed as the adult in the group. She tries to escape by driving away but crashes into a cornfield. She wakes up at a hospital and is seen choosing Greg over Paul and after they have sex we see her laying down in bed, defeated, while Greg is seen talking to three other girls. When alone again, Greg lies about believing her.

Once they make it back home, Jay no longer feels safe in the pool and instead hides in her room. Greg comes over and makes it clear that he doesn’t believe Jay, while the others do, distancing the gap between them.

All is lost

Jay sees a stranger break into Greg’s house and then disguises itself into his mother to kill him.

Dark night of the soul

Jay drives away and spends the night in the woods. At a nearby lake, she sees a boat in the distance with three men in it. She swims towards them to pass on the curse, but it’s implied that she doesn’t go through with it as we see her driving back with tears running down her face. In doing so, the character’s making a conscious decision to not lose herself and hold onto what makes her her. At the same time we see the pool has been drained for good as she runs out of places to hide.

Break into three

Paul tells her that he’d be fine with the curse being passed on to him, but she refuses. He sees an old photo of her at an indoor pool and gets an idea. As they leave the house, we see the neighbor’s kid watching them. Meanwhile, Yara remarks that the pool is where she had her first beer and couldn’t stop throwing up after and it’s also where Paul used to pee in the water, implying it’s a place rooted to their childhood.

Finale

They state that the place where they’re going is one they weren’t allowed to go to on their own as kids, but now they have to venture on their own for Jay’s life depends on it.

They line up a bunch of old electronics alongside the pool, hoping to electrocute whatever comes for Jay. However, it starts throwing the devices at her instead. Eventually they manage to push it into the water and gun it down, but the water just runs red, telling them that evil hasn’t been defeated and can’t be.

Jay decides to have sex with Paul, passing the curse to him which he passes to a prostitute. Yara remarks that when one’s faced with immense torture, the resulting pain is meant to distract them that death looms around the corner and can claim them at any second, this tells us that despite having survived the ordeal and protected their young selves, there’s always the rise of the curse finding it’s way back to them, just as moving into adulthood can’t be undone.

Closing image

We see Jay and Paul hold hands as they walk in the suburbs, as they do so, they pass a person raking dry leaves off his yard (which can be viewed as distancing one’s self from impurities), while walking towards children at play. However, in the distance a figure walks in the same direction.