…and why does it take so long for people to die? Spoilers ahead as I delve into what is real and what isn’t at Reed’s Point — or scroll down if you just want to recap that ending. (Alternatively if you’re looking for my review it’s here.)
The Reed / Franklin feud
There are links between Kelsey and Sarah’s family, the Franklins, and the Reeds of the Pine Barrens, in a feud going back hundreds of years. It’s all over some disputed land, which the Franklins own and the Reeds consider is rightfully theirs. There has clearly also been much more additional bad feeling over the years too.
Schrodïnger’s Devil?
The Jersey Devil turns out to be both real and not real. There is indeed a monster, or possibly a family of monsters, living in the woods. Does that mean they are demonic or supernatural though? Maybe there are just particularly ugly mammals. But there is also Eric (a very handsome mammal) who lives in the house in the woods and likes to dress up as the Jersey Devil and scare gullible tourists, to keep the myth alive. It is Eric in his monster costume who drags away Kelsey from the RV crash, then keeps her captive until she is found by Sarah a year later. While he is dragging Kelsey away, a creature, presumably the “real” Jersey Devil, rips off the RV driver’s arm and kills him.
As for the history of the Jersey Devil, it exists in American folklore, though I had never heard of it (I’m British! our homegrown monsters are the Hound of the Baskervilles and Boris Johnson). The story is that back in time, one of the Reeds had 12 children, and when she became pregnant with her 13th child she cursed it (you can’t blame her, I can barely cope with two). It grew horns and a tail, and killed the family. (Well clearly not all as the Reeds are still around.)
But was it all a dream?
Sarah seems to be coping with multiple traumas. When we meet her before the crash she is relaxed, with glossy long hair. A year later it’s cut very short, as if it’s growing back, and she ponders a scar on her breast. Has she also had cancer? That second shock to her mortality would add an extra layer to her trauma but also possibly bolster her determination: she’s already faced two awful situations in one year and survived.
Or perhaps not; a couple of times during the film she seems to be dreaming. Perhaps cancer is the horror in her life, with everything else about the devil her own psychological creation to help her deal with that. Alex even says to her, when she’s stating how sure she is that Kelsey is alive, that “sometimes people can manifest a tragedy to help them cope, and … maybe this is just your way of coping”.
The accident
If it was an accident… it’s never really clear at what point the Reeds and Eric started planning this. The distracted RV driver doesn’t see the deer on the road until it’s too late, and that’s not something you can plan for. The issues with the Reeds and Franklins are still ongoing though: early in the movie Greg takes a business call where he refuses to include some Pine Barrens land he owns in a new deal he’s working on, as the land has been in his family for hundreds of years. While the crash looks genuine, maybe Greg’s business meeting that evening was arranged by the Reeds (my guess is he was talking to Eric on the phone), and they were planning to put something in motion anyway, either kidnapping or killing the Franklins.
The ending!
After Alex is injured in the woods, Hank goes back to the car for his saw, but takes so long Sarah leaves to look for help. She arrives at Eric’s cottage and he takes her in.
Despite Eric’s dismissals, she’s disturbed by strange knocking noises coming from his basement. She ventures down there, discovering Eric’s Jersey Devil suit, and also Kelsey, locked in a room and banging on the wall. Eric chloroforms Sarah; when she comes round she and Kelsey knock Eric out and escape. He’s not dead though! Kelsey then refuses to leave the grounds, saying Eric is her brother. Sarah runs.
Hank eventually returns to Alex, and takes him back to the café where he drugs him. Beth, the owner of the cafe, arrives — another Reed, she’s presumably Hank’s sister. They take Alex back into the woods and though he temporarily escapes, both he and Sarah are found and returned to Eric’s house.
Alex and Sarah are held captive. He manages to punch Hank and then heads outside to nab Beth’s car, while Sarah goes to look for Kelsey in the basement. Alex finds Kelsey outside but she doesn’t recognise him as her boyfriend. Beth whacks him on the head with a gun, knocking him out but, in a surprise to none of us by now, not killing him.
Beth threatens Sarah with a gun. Sarah replies that this isn’t their fight, though Beth sees only the hurt wrought by the Franklins down the centuries and is not in the mood for platitudes. Alex comes to and fights Beth, grabbing her gun so it fires into the sky; she then shoots Alex, who doesn’t die immediately, expiring only after a few last words to Beth. Sarah smashes Beth’s head with a metal pipe and then shoots Hank dead (amazingly, for good). Sarah tries to persuade Kelsey to leave with her. Beth, not dead at all, stands up and tells them they are going to die, at which point Sarah shoots her dead too.
Sarah and Kelsey run off through the woods, soon pursued by a Jersey Devil. Sarah threatens it with a gun; Eric, holding his devil head, emerges from the darkness. He claims he was forced to help the Reeds under pain of death. He also tells Kelsey her dad wouldn’t move on the land deal, which implies it was Eric who Greg was picking up in the RV on the night of the crash (at the very least he must have been the one on the phone call with Greg at the start of the film). Kelsey is not convinced — her Stockholm Syndrome has gone and she no longer sees Eric as a brother figure. She shoots Eric with Sarah’s gun, and he falls down dead (wait, what!) Kelsey is then pursued by a real Jersey Devil; she falls and the devil finds her, stroking her face before disappearing back into the darkness as Kelsey whimpers on the ground.
Sarah staggers out of the woods, muttering about the devil. She’s found by the sheriff and the waitress from the café, who had called the police worried about Sarah and Alex. They put Sarah into the back seat but when the waitress turns around Sarah has vanished. The sheriff too has disappeared from the front seat, to be replaced by a Jersey Devil, which then kills her. Watching from the trees is Kelsey, joined by a Jersey Devil (another one?). They both then turn and go back into the woods.
Everyone else who died
Greg was presumably killed outright in the crash, along with Suzy, the server. James, the driver, tells Sarah that he pulled out everyone he could, then a creature looms over him and rips off his arm, killing him.
Max, the college newspaper editor, follows Alex and Sarah to the woods in her car to when she can’t reach them on their phones. Arriving after it has got dark, she immediately goes into the woods with a torch. A creature attacks her and cuts her throat with its claws, killing her.