Salvage (2006 film)

Plot

The film begins with Claire closing out her graveyard shift at the convenience store. She is to be picked up by her boyfriend and driven home but instead someone else, who identifies himself as "Duke" is driving her boyfriend's truck. After an unsettling ride home during which Duke makes increasingly overt sexual comments about her, Claire closes herself into the safety of her house, but Duke shows up at her door again, claiming she has dropped an earring.

Claire refuses to let him in, and he drops the earring on her front porch and apparently leaves. Claire spends several agonizing moments crouched in the doorway retrieving the earring, but upon successfully recapturing it and pulling the door closed, finds her back door has swung open. Duke has entered the house from the rear and proceeds to brutally murder Claire.

Claire awakens at the convenience store again, and all seems well. She decides that she has had a bad dream. She begins to repeat her day, except this time her boyfriend does come to pick her up, and she makes it home and to school. However, unsettling hints begin to appear. The sequence of events once again leads to a moment where Claire is being murdered, and she again awakens in the convenience store.

As each sequence leads towards her death, she hears from time to time people who she trusts talking just out of earshot about how she is "catching on." Finally she puts together the clues and realizes that not only has Duke been killed by the local police, but that she herself is missing and presumed dead, as is her boyfriend Jimmy.

In the end, it is revealed that Duke Desmond's soul has been occupying Claire's physical body the entire time and he is in Hell reliving the brutal murder of Claire over and over again as eternal punishment. Just before the end credits, Claire again awakens in the convenience store.

Cast

Music

Composer Evan Wilson provided the original score for the movie. Additional music is provided by Devola, a group from the Ohio area (themselves named after a geographic location) where the film was shot.

Production

According to the directors' commentary the film was shot entirely with digital video, accounting for the greatly reduced budget of the film. Additionally the credits reveal that the cast served many "crew" roles, with Lauren Lewis responsible for hair and makeup. There has been no apparent theatrical release of the film, but it is available in DVD release.

Home media

Released on DVD as Gruesome in Australia and in the UK.

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 38% based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10.