Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s Japanese horror film ‘Re/Member’ follows the story of six teenagers who are forced to repeat the same day over and over again. They don’t how that happened or why they were chosen to repeat the same cycle of blood and mayhem over and over again. Somehow, they manage to figure out the task that they need to complete in order to break out of the loop. They have to finish the Body Search, and every night, the Red Person will try to kill and stop them before they can finish the task. If you want to know more about the Body Search and who the Red Person is, then we’ve got you covered. SPOILERS AHEAD
What is the Body Search?
Despite it being a crucial element of the story, the film barely sheds any light on the origins of the Body Search. Asuka and her friends find enough information to get them out of the loop, but their limited knowledge also puts them in danger because they don’t realize they’ll still have a lot to lose once they have finished the search and are back to their normal lives. With all the details that are revealed throughout the film, here’s what we know about Body Search.
As the name suggests, Body Search is about finding the body of one person. This person, who differs for every group, was brutally killed and dismembered at a young age. Their body parts were hidden in different places inside the premises of a particular location. In the case of Asuka and her friends, it is their school building and the chapel. In the case of other students, it could be an amusement park, as hinted by the post-credits scene.
The teenagers chosen for the task are usually the ones who are lonely or outcasts. All of them see the person, whose body they need to find, during the day. In the film, Asuka seas Miko, who asks her to find her body. Later, Asuka discovers that the rest of the group saw Miko as well. That night, Asuka gets a series of disturbing texts from an unknown person. It can be assumed that it is either the ghost of the girl or someone else, who is in control of the time loop.
As soon as the clock hits midnight, the teenagers are transported to the school, where they have to continue searching for the body and they will remain there until the ghost kills them. The time remains stuck at midnight throughout the search, and when all of them are killed, they wake on the same day, living the same series of events all over again. This will continue until they have collected all parts of the body.
Once the Body Search is finished and the teenagers break out of the loop, they will have no memory of ever being in it. They will forget everything, including the bonds they forged with each other during the loop. Still, a remnant of those feelings remains, which is why Asuka and Takahiro are able to remember each other in the end. Another important part of the Body Search that is revealed in the post-credits scene is that one of the teenagers from the group will become the victim of the next Body Search. In this case, it is Asuka who is killed when she was eight and a new group of teenagers will be brought together to search for her body parts.
The Red Person: Miko’s Haunting Presence
Finding all the body parts of a person is like a puzzle for teenagers who get good at it with every loop. What makes things difficult for them is the Red Person that hunts them every night, killing all of them over and over again. This Red Person is a young girl covered in blood. The teenagers later discover that it is Miko, the girl whose body parts they are looking for. Miko was brutally killed at the age of eight. She had been sick, so she didn’t go to school. She lived alone at home with only her doll as her companion. She had been lonely, which explains why other lonely teenagers were chosen for her Body Search.
While Miko kills them every night, the teenagers don’t actually die. They reappear the next day, ready to take on the loop. During the day, they visit Miko’s house, where she was murdered, and find her doll, Emily, which turned out to be the key to solving the last piece of the puzzle. Somehow, they end up triggering the doll and in the next loop, Miko and Emily become one giant monster. The teenagers discover that this monster is even more dangerous because if it eats any one of them, they will be erased from existence. The person who is eaten in one loop, won’t appear in the next one. However, they will reappear once the Body Search is completed and the time loop is broken.
Read More: Re/Member Ending, Explained: How Do Asuka Breaks Out of the Time Loop?
