Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s horror film, ‘Re/Member’ uses a time loop to create a truly horrific scenario for its characters to get stuck in. The story begins from the perspective of a girl named Asuka, but soon, five of her classmates also get involved in the chain of events that follow. They discover that they are stuck on the same day, which will continue to repeat itself over and over again until they bring together all the body parts of a girl who was killed three decades ago. In the end, they succeed at the task and break out of the loop, but the horror doesn’t end there. In the scene that plays after the credits have rolled, we discover that there is more to the story. If you are wondering what it means for Asuka and her friends, then we’ve got you covered. SPOILERS AHEAD
Does Asuka Die?
Asuka and her friends get stuck in a time loop where they die every single time until they succeed at the task. All of these deaths were temporary, and while one of them is briefly erased from existence, all of them make it to the next day alive and well. The end-credits scene, however, tells a different story. In it, we get to see what’s at the bottom of the well outside the chapel. We see a newspaper clipping with the story of Miko Onoyama, the young girl who was killed and dismembered thirty years ago and whose body Asuka and her friends put together in the time loop.
Interestingly, the headline about Miko dissolves and reappears as another headline, which talks about the brutal murder of a young girl at an amusement park. Miko’s picture also dissolves and reappears as the picture of young Asuka. While it looks like Asuka is supposed to die, it remains a little confusing because Asuka is already in her teenage and the headline talks about a girl who was eight years old when she died. What does this mean?
The film doesn’t reveal much about Miko, her killer, and how teenagers get stuck in a time loop or who made the rules of Body Search. It does, however, hint towards the fact that Body Search and time loops are much more common and have happened to people all over the world. The only reason they are not talked about more frequently is that people’s memories are removed once they break out of a loop. The same thing happened to the librarian, Mr. Yashiro. He reveals that when he was a senior in high school, he thinks like he was in the Body Search. He uses the word “think” because he can’t ever be sure as he doesn’t remember any of it. This is what leads Asuka to realize that her friends will forget about it too.
Considering that Mr. Yashiro is in his late 30s, it is possible that he and Miko Onoyama were in the same class. Because Yashiro doesn’t remember the loop or even who his friends were, with whom he had a great time, it is possible that he has forgotten about Miko too. It is possible that she was one of those friends who solved and survived the loop with him. That would mean that Miko grew up to be a teenager. But wasn’t she killed when she was eight-year-old? Yes and yes. This is where that mysterious clipping in the well comes into play.
We don’t yet know the exact rules of the Body Search and how it works, so we can go out on a limb and say that the game picks its victims from its former players. Miko played the game with her friends. When they succeeded, she was chosen to be the victim for the future players. Considering that there is someone or something that can create a time loop and trap people in it, it isn’t that hard to believe that this person/thing can also go back in time and kill people and dismember them for the sake of their twisted game. It is this thing that went back in the past and killed Miko when she was only eight. The same thing is bound to happen to Asuka.
The next question we need the answer to is why did this entity choose Asuka over the other five members of the group. Probably because Asuka was the one who actually completed the Body Search. She was the one who put Miko’s head in the coffin, completing the task and breaking the loop for good. It is possible that back then, Miko did the same in her loop. The film hints at Asuka being the center of all of this in several other scenes. She is the only one who sees Miko’s picture in the newspaper moving and covered in worms. It is clear that she is the one that has been impacted by this whole experience the most. She is the only one who sees hands coming out of the well outside the chapel. It is also interesting because the well is where Miko’s head (which remained missing all these years) was eventually found and she was put to rest.
Considering all this, it looks like Asuka is the entity’s next target. The killer, whose identity is never revealed, will go back in past and brutally kill Asuka when she is eight. She will be dismembered and her body parts will be thrown away, and later, a group of teenagers will be chosen to bring together all her body parts or remain stuck in a time loop of their own.
Read More: Re/Member Ending, Explained: How do Asuka and Her Friends Break Out of the Time Loop?
