The premise behind this movie was pretty interesting, but the story could have been better than 4 young adults using a mysterious piece of technology to hijack rich kids at parties. It seems pretty shallow but I think that most people would do similar things if they could take over someone else's body. Money, sex, drugs and other vices would naturally be the focus of alot of people. The main character Samantha used the device in both a selfish but also virtuous way. She manipulated her boss at work so she could have more time addicted to the machine. But she also tried to get her mother out of the addicted slump she was in, which we never really see how that plays out. Samantha obviously is envious of Marissa's relationship with Mark so she hijacks her for long periods of time, just to live in her shoes.
But to get to the explanation of the movie, it is sort of like the movie Inception, a dream inside a dream thing which is confusing at first to grasp. What is really going on is some kind of experiment to see if people who are observed will act differently than people who are not being watched. Jenny and I think Mark are not who you think they are. They are actually people who are having their bodies being controlled by others whom we do not see. The comment by Jenny at the end when she offers Mark coffee, gives this away. So obviously the machine they have is not the only machine in existence. Someone is using another machine to control them and make them hook up to the machine in Jenny's place. Confused yet? Whomever the people are behind this experiment are, they do not want to leave any lose ends, hence the ending where they make Mark kill Victor, Samantha, Jenny and then himself. But not before he collects the research data and puts it in a box for a shady looking delivery van to pick up. Regarding Victor, I am not entirely sure if he is being controlled. I believe he is not just like Samantha which is why he tries to die in the simulation. Then he tries to escape because he says he can't trust anyone. He was also suspicious of Samantha and where she came from. Anyways, apparently if the host dies while you are hooked up to them, you yourself do not die, as was shown in Victor's case. However, the opposite is not true. When Samantha was hijacking Marissa and was killed by Jenny, her consciousness was trapped forever in Marissa. At first she panics and tries to call Mark, whose voice we can hear mumbling about cleaning up Samantha's body. Samantha is so freaked out by being trapped in Marissa's body that she is distracted and wrecks the car. We later discover that Marissa is indeed Samantha by her jogging routine and eating peanut butter.
Overall the movie I think needed an ending that explained more about the experiment although I think the writers left enough breadcrumbs as to what type of experiment it was. They mentioned rats addicted to morphine when they are caged, but once free act differently. So observing how people acted while hooked to the addictive machine was a large part of the experiment although I am not sure what benefit it is to the scientists.
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