This too… At the beginning, I had an interesting theory about the phenomena. It was something that induced hallucinations, which would explain the voices and sights and crazy suicidal behavior. It would also explain why the crazy people didn’t get affected in the same way: they were already used to psychosis/hallucinations.

It could have been explained in a few ways but 2 seemed plausible to me:
-A radiation or such that works through the eyes and causes brain damage, etc
Or
-A rift in space/time that makes those exposed get stuck in an “eternity” in an instant, like going through sensory deprivation for months. (Some people who have hallucinated in a bad trip describe a second taking forever to pass… Like a mental black hole!)

I think I should stick to the psychological horror movies and sci-fi. When they do ghosts or gods/demons, it becomes so fanciful and reminds me that many religious books describe what those on trips go through… But people rather believe that demons and ghosts are doing it instead of their own chemistry….

Ok, much much better. I can actually understand what you are getting at here. Thank you Robert.

In the book this is much much clearer, and the movie muddied things a bit by taking an idea a step or two too far. In the book, it is implied that if you are sane, and you see an alien you’ll kill yourself. Done. (I explain this over in my review of the movie in more detail.) But if you are insane, mentally unstable? You won’t kill yourself. But you will want to help others see this epiphany that you have just seen. (Thereby killing them.)

Also, just because you can’t look and see where these aliens are, doesn’t mean they are literally everywhere. You could be reasonably sure you could look out onto the street and survive that daredevil experiment. You could go hours or even days without encountering an alien. But do you want to risk it? No, of course not.

Now, as to the voices. In the book, there is a physical encounter with the Aliens that Malorie has. She’s walking blind, with the blindfold on. And she knows that alien(s) are near. And she begins to feel that alien is getting close to her face, and suddenly her blindfold begins to lift up. And its this sort of innocent, curious encounter between the alien and Malorie. But as the director, Susanne Bier, chose not to ever show the alien on screen, this encounter was impossible to shoot. Impossible to convey in a visual medium. So, instead, they went with voices. I’m not defending the choice, I’m just saying it logically follows as to how they got there. The only strange thing about this though is that the alien can read the person’s mind in order to sound like a loved one’s family member. But they are doing that visually anyway? Why wouldn’t they be able to do it audibly? I think the thing that is angering you is that they didn’t tell you in advance that the aliens could mimic a loved one. Right? But I don’t think this was cheating at all – I see it as a very clever solution to a complicated problem from the book. A natural way to surprise, and give Malorie one more significant hurdle before the ending, and her last sprint to safety.

But you are definitely entitled to your opinion. I am just of the mind that this was a nearly impossible script to write. Quiet Place was a way easier nut to crack in my opinion. And so every triple gainer they did in the screenplay solved tons of problems thrown at the writers from the book. But yeah, this wasn’t a perfect movie. I didn’t like the roaming bands and how they didn’t explain them clearly enough… how could they be running around outside without blindfolds. (Obviously they are insane.)

Anyway, my two cents.

Here’s the issue. At the beginning, those who look- hear the voices and see the horror. Those blindfolded do not. However, at the end of the movie where they are going through the forest, despite having blindfolds ON, they hear voices.

Why the change of the “physics” of this phenomenon at the end? Had people heard voices in the beginning with the blindfolds on, that wouldn’t take away from the start and it would be consistent with the forest scene.