All language subtitles for The.Dark.Sisters.2023.WEBRip-YIFY

It gleams every night,

crime scene tape, phosphorescent
in the dark woods.

It guards between human intellect

and the sentience of nature.

Consider your feelings for a
lone hawk soaring in the sky.

Now consider it mantling
over a little rabbit

and the squawk, squawk,
squawk of dying life.

The crime scene tape flaps
between these two images,

between the religious
feeling of the soaring hawk

and the frozen moment when
we see what's on its talons.

Consider the fern that covers
the surface of the water,

spreading to make a feast of the light

and everything below is held
in darkness, starving slow.

Between the survival of the fern

and the deaths of the
darkened plants and fish,

that is where we put a barrier
to mark evidence of a crime.

This tape we put up,
it's a strange legality,

a symbol of our
exclusively human concerns.

Cut through it.

Come into an extra-human reality.

What's the first macabre
thing you remember?

I remember being a
kid, four, maybe five,

waking up to discover a streak
of dried blood on my pillow

and wondering, from my ears,
from my nose, from my eyes?

Blood from the eyes. That's rich.

Like a detail from one of your stories.

I don't remember that, you're
coming awake, bleeding.

Probably, it was a dream.

Crows attacking fairies,
tumbling bloody in the sky.

I used to to dream like that all the time.

So vivid there'd be
remnant outside my head,

a stain upon my pillow.

I've been teaching my course

on the contemporary novel for years.

Then two years ago, I
started a night class

on romantic poetry, emphasis
on the metaphysical.

Coleridge, Baudelaire, Poe.

Are you still religious?

Not like we were before.

Of course not.

We should go in. It'll be dark soon.

You worried about snakes?

You are too. Don't lie.

There's some DVD's in
the cabin Horror movies.

- Any bad ones?
- We can hope.

All horror movies are about
prying into private places

and the discoveries are like
long falls through the dark.

You have a story, your character Lizzie,

searching through a family
member's private things.

Yes, Lizzie.

She pays a secret visit to
her stepbrother's closet

and falls through a trap door.

The fall of Lizzie, is it far?

A long tumble through the dark.

Into a basement?

More like a realm beneath the house.

Oh, I like that.

There's a troll down there

and Lizzie's hurt her ankle from the fall.

She's defenseless, therefore prey.

The troll tells her
there are special laws.

If she obeys these laws,
her ankle will heal

and the puddle of blood
at her feet will rise

into a ladder, which rung over rung

she can climb all the
way up to the trap door.

What are the special laws?

The most special law
is this, no snooping,

but of course, the troll lays it out

in a biblically formal way.

"Thou shall not cast
eyes in unwelcome places.

Neither shall you open cabinetry

or peek through curtains."

That sort of thing.

But our Lizzie can't
resist a secret visit

to a closet or quick peek into cabinetry.

No, she can't.

I'm trying to imagine a mind

that rejoices in these stories.

I don't rejoice in them.

Do you all always write anonymously?

I really don't want the attention.

Not for this kind of work.

What does body horror mean?

Blood spray.

Do all your stories spray blood?

Like a car wash.

Is it ritualistic, for revenge?

These aren't literary stories.

The draw is mutilation.

You must know why that is,

otherwise you wouldn't
be so successful at it.

Mutilation is like a search.

It turns the characters
insides into outsides.

Hidden things now seen, roughly exposed.

The reader's desire
to see private parts.

And knowing that it's
not all right to want that.

An appealing sense of shame.

Like something from the
dark recesses of Puritanism.

Shame and rage.

A reliable business model.

Jorie, I called to you

to make sense of what happened.

You didn't answer.

It's taken me a long time.

I'm sorry, but now I have a plan.

A way for us to move past our troubles,

into a future tense of joy.

You bring me all the way
out here to a place that seems

prehistoric to tell me about future joy?

I'll reveal everything soon,

but first, let me catch up with you.

I didn't realize how much
I had ached to see you.

Not the intent of suicide.

An image of floating just
below the surface of the water.

Pale as stone, empty,

trailed by fish and birds.

No, the ideation of suicide.

To imagine the migraine of
consciousness over and done.

What can water really do?

I remember a dark time.

We were children under pressure.

Sworn to stay quiet.

We disappeared all evidence
of the thing we did,

but the secret, the
secret hollowed us out.

Hey.

We were sold.

Not sold.

Whatever ceremonial
name you wanna put to it,

we were sold.

And him that bought us is an old halfwit

in the mistaken light between
competence and desire.

An inheritance of goat-gnawed automobiles

he can't put to profit.

The light at the ceremony,

the light they say binds us to him,

it's a light of absence.

The light of isolation, our toil.

Binding light.

Bright light. Indentured light

Light upon sweat, light upon blood.

Light of a raw life.

The light of the belt around our necks.

Light decaying into light.

In the light of our
own darkness, receeding.

A fall on an ax will
create a specific wound.

We have to mimic that wound.

You said we'd hide the
body, hide it perfectly.

Anything hidden can
one day appear again.

We'll be ready no matter what.

Come on. Let's give it a try.

No.

Slowly, to practice precision. Like this:

Chop, chop, chop.

Chop, chop, chop,

chop, chop, chop.

Hey!

Drop my fucking bag!

Hey, you!

Oh!

No!

Uh!

Must you?

Quit throwing rocks
at my head! God, y'all!

Back the fuck off,

or I swear I'll kill your
husband and your daughter!

I'll slit both their throats to rags!

Remember, my knife knows
the way home, bitches.

Yes.

Oh, yes. Me too.

I miss you both.

I love you.

I will. Goodbye.

They're fine?

Yes, they're fine.

The odds of that crazy
girl coming back after we...

I know.

Does she even have the
sense to find her way

out of those woods is...

I know. I'm all good.

How much did you tell your husband?

Who robs a house looking like a wolf?

It's so odd.

What about
the person in the truck?

Clearly not very brave.

Listen, I was thinking,
I think we should stay

and finish our vacation.

I don't think she'll be back.

What's wrong?

You mentioned an
event that would move us

past our troubles so that we can focus

on a future tense of joy.

You don't think I orchestrated
that break in, do you?

Maybe it's too late for us
to be normal with one another.

Don't say that.

I've waited for so long.

Let's try, please.

- Someone's here.
- The park rangers?

We hope.

We searched the woods
where she fled, but no luck.

She probably made her way to the fringe.

- The fringe?
- Yeah.

It's what we call a
little ad hoc community

between here and town.

Camp of young adults found
themselves outta place,

now living in the woods by choice.

- Are they violent?
- Not normally,

but sometimes there are drifters.

You're going to thoroughly
check this place out, yes?

Now that you have the description

of the one who attacked us.

I'm on my way there now
with the park rangers.

I just stopped by to
tell you that the woods

near your cabin are clear.

- You're not a park ranger?
- I'm a volunteer.

That's rich.

You look like a ranger out of
central casting.

I know these woods pretty well, I guess.

What do you do?

I'm a pastor at a
Congregationalist church in town.

No fooling?

No fooling.

I never would've figured that.

Well thanks. Maybe.

How is it that this fringe community

is tolerated by the parks department?

Not tolerated, exactly.

I sort of liaison between the two.

Do you have a card or something?

I don't mean to be impolite,

but if you're not a park ranger,

then we oughta have some record

of who we're speaking to about our case.

Case? We weren't robbed exactly.

But you clearly saw the knife.

I don't have a card. I'm sorry.

My name is Jack Weems.

I'm known around the lake.
It's easy to check up on me.

Parson Weems?

- Sorry.
- It's fine.

I've heard 'em all.

Believe me, "I cannot tell a lie."

Can we go with you to see the fringe?

Not a good idea, but I can circle back

after my look around if you want me to.

That'd be nice. Thank you.

♪ Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack ♪

♪ Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back ♪

♪ Mandibles of the sun ♪

♪ Will tear the world undone ♪

♪ Light on the horizon gleas with blood ♪

♪ Serpent sets its gaze ♪

♪ You're frozen and amazed ♪

♪ You lose your life
and all you understood ♪

♪ The game is fixed to rot ♪

♪ You're here and then you're not ♪

♪ The only thing worth
living is a thought ♪

♪ Rapture, rupture ♪

♪ Rapture, rupture. ♪

♪ The only thing worth
living is a thought ♪

That's not true.

Did you talk to the locals?

Out back?

Giant salvinia.

The ferns you see here
are choking the lake.

Biological control through
the use of salvinia weevils

is the best management option.

The weevils devour that
the lake may become clear.

Looks chaotic, doesn't it?

Looks like renewal.

This place is magical.

Yes.

It's as though
there's a separation.

This natural place and
the place of ambition,

a place of concrete skin.

There's encroachment.
This place needs preserving.

At your church,
do you say God's plan?

- Yes.
- Is that accurate?

It's helpful.

Saying "plan" presents a sense
of authority in the unknown.

What word would you use?

Spectacle. God's spectacle.

God's spectacle which
includes individual damage.

And individual grace?

Can it be included in this talk

of spectacle and grace,

the prospect of a double,
that each of us has a double.

A double that prepares us for survival?

A representation of ourselves?

Imagine I have a double.

Someone who struggles,
but also sets the stage

for me to live more wisely.

Are you talking about Kaidon?

We've been
separated for a long time.

The lake is our reunion.

Although it sounds magical,

I believe I have a way forward for us.

A path you
didn't know about before.

Take the idea of heaven

and God's plan for destination.

Imagine not a plan but a spectacle.

Everything happening simultaneously.

Instead of toil and reward being one thing

followed by another, life and life after,

imagine toil and reward at once.

Experience between doubles.

One struggle prepares
the other's survival.

They're at the same pace.

It's interesting

So no, not a pathway, an event.

An event of grace where the
doubles meet and are made equal.

What type of event is that?

Something extreme.

It's you.

Like it or not, you can hear me.

We are a closed community
dedicated to God.

Silence and obedience are expected.

Husband guards us and guides us.

His eyes and punishment are swift.

Ours too, Kaidon. Our punishment is swift.

Lizzie was alone in the forest.

A sour spell had taken over her.

She struggled up a hill
the way a newborn calf

struggles to his feet.

She wobbled in and out
of the black shadows

cast by the cypresses.

Were there crows?

Yes. Shiny and loud.

Lizzie was on the lookout
for a circle of stones,

a healing place that was
assembled on the hill

hundreds of years ago.

The spell made her ears
hurt and her stomach turn.

She looked forward to laying
down in the circle of stones,

covering herself over with ferns and dirt.

The stones would dissipate
the spell or so she hoped.

Lizzie moved from tree to tree,

handling each one for support.

She was losing all her strength.

All at once, the insects all went dumb.

The crows were high up in the quiet.

Lizzie felt herself watched.

Did a black cat walk by?

Yes. Delicate and precise.

Lizzie felt thoroughly searched.

And then she saw hunter standing

on the side of the hill watching her.

The hunter was a woman
with a striking face

and powerful eyes.

Lizzie thought she was probably a goddess

there to guide her or else murder her.

Possibly do both.

Why are you here?

I wanna change my life.

What is wrong with it?

I've been a terrible person.

I'm in so much pain.

I need to think about my life
and find a new way to be.

And what if the change is death?

Don't you think it's possible
that you deserve to die?

I prefer to live.

If there's a way to live
and be changed, I want that.

What will you do?

Anything.

Do you have the authority to help me?

Yes.

An exchange is necessary.

You must bring me two.

Then you will have the
opportunity to reform

Two?

All right.

I'll bring you two.

I had a moment of recognition,

like a face that appears
suddenly at the window.

First, it's a surprise. Then you know.

Sounds profound.

I found a way for Kaidon and me

to let the pain of her
past stay in the past.

Not a denial.

We understand we can't
possibly make each other feel

what the gap of years
was like for each other.

Her time staying solitary and me trying

to make a life for myself.

Right now, there is a void between us,

a history of absence
and the pain of absence.

What might help is the shock of the new.

Shock of the new?

The idea is to
create a new beginning.

It must be a profound experience.

Something that regenerates
our relationship,

allows us to reshape our
understanding of one another.

What is this shocking experience?

It has to do with that thief.

There is an
old story about snakes

saving their hearts in humans.

Cold-blooded snakes can live for a time

without their hearts, gaining warmth

instead by gliding their bodies

across sunlit grass and stone.

To protect their hearts
from trample or combat,

snakes often hide their
hearts in stronger vessels.

There are people so cut off
from their own memories,

their hearts grow cold.

No disguise can truly hide them.

No matter their appointments

or how they surround themselves,

they are deeply alone.

Snakes seek out such people
to hide their hearts in.

People who don't know their
own heart won't notice,

they also carry a snake heart.

There are stories of people that died

from terrible loneliness.

As many as 20 snake hearts have been found

in a lonely person that died.

And sometimes, people die

when snakes come to retrieve their heart.

They see snakes approaching

and misunderstand the situation.

If the snake is cut in
two by a worried host,

there is a heart within
that person that dies.

If the snake strikes a person,

the poison that goes in the veins

will affect the hidden heart.

I'll tell you about axes and dirt.

There are people that bury their
axes but never forget them.

There are people who bury their axes

and uncover them every night
just to hold them in secret.

There are people who bury axes

who will tell you to your face,

they never carried an
ax in all their life.

Snakes are careful of
their bellies in dirt

where axes are hidden.

They know they have to put
their hearts somewhere safe.

They can sense those people cut
off from their own memories,

people with buried hearts.

Such obstinate sadness is
the perfect hiding place.

Word travels fast when
there is a suitable host

for the snakes to save their hearts.

But there is always a risk.

A person burdened by too many snake hearts

will find oneself standing
at the edge of a cliff

or deep water and look into it,

search it with the
bloody weight of desire,

desire that drenches the
world in a cold chill.

We watch out for such people.

♪ Priestly, prissy, Pastor Jack ♪

♪ Puts the girls of the
orphanage on their back ♪

I believe there are doubles

and we are each other's double.

Not an exact likeness.

Doubling is one of nature's
irregular patterns.

It's a way of expressing
personal satisfaction

and personal crisis.

Perhaps one struggle sets the
stage to live more wisely.

Even Prosperously.

I think that's the case with you and me.

You are alone working anonymously.

I have my students and my family.

I think what happened to you with old Karl

and how we fixed old Karl,

I think it resulted in an imbalance.

It's you.

You can hear me, like it or not.

I ate a concoction of grass and flowers.

It didn't make me whole, but
maybe it'll strike your fancy.

I'm not as wretched as you think.

I have human qualities.

When I was little, I drew
little forest creatures

wearing human clothes, Victorian
dresses and waist coats,

moist eyes looking out at you.

They weren't very good
and I think most of them

I traced out of some book,

but I could sort of see in them

what my mind intended them to be.

Portrait after portrait,
adding up to a little society.

I'd spread them out and feel fellowship.

Heaven allows individual damage.

A double can absorb some of that damage.

You feel her.

- Who?
- The hunter.

She's close.

Where?

Behind those
trees chewing on a dead doe.

She wouldn't want you
to see her like this.

Wait till after she's fed.

She's better after having blood.

I thought we'd find a
leveling experience out here

by this remote lake.

I knew about that fringe
group that lives in the woods

and how they've taken liberties
with the rental cabins.

The darkness that marks us is self-similar

to the darkness that marked the thief.

She stands before a mirror

and sees an image that's evolving.

The image supersedes the host

and soon

she'll be brand new

like a snake shedding its skin.

We're drawn back,

forever back into our
sin against old Karl.

Chop, chop

Chop.

It is the absence
of meaning in what you live

at the moment you are living it

which multiplies the
possibilities of your imagination.

I grew up in the country.

I grew up in the city.

Probably the things I had were
nicer than the things you had.

Probably.

Were you happy?

I had thought life isn't worth living,

but it is worth thinking about.

I remember when I was small,

I was once held down
by several older boys.

That set me off to a bad start.

That's horrible.

I'd like you to
consider how you might go on

thinking about your life even
after you lose your life.

Think about what everlasting means.

I was daydreaming.
Where did you take me?

To see the hunter.
She's ready for us now.

Where are you going?

I'm leaving.

No. There's momentum for us now.

I don't want you
coming around the cabin.

Leave us alone.

I don't need to go
to your cabin to find you.

I'll alert the rangers.

We are tethered now

and you don't need to be afraid.

Let events run their course.

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

Heaven allows individual damage.

A double can absorb some of that damage.

A double prepares us for survival.

I thought a thief might provide
us the shock of the new.

We'd have a new challenge to unite us.

A shared experience that
would allow us to begin again.

Hey you!

Moving forward, that would be

the story we would tell,

how we chased a thief that
trespassed against us,

ran her deep into the forest and gone.

This story would supplant
the story of old Karl.

Narrative is everything.

Story puts all our
experiences and all our dreams

into balance, but our doubling
now involves uncertainty.

Someone messed up the narrative.

A player has gone rogue.

She's using us as her double,

preparing her own survival at our expense.

An elaborate double-cross.

Something in the woods gets
her power to pull it off.

A person cannot
know whether the next moment

will be not like any other moment,

but one that will change
their life or end their life.

A deer in the woods
goes about its business

knowing only by instinct
what sort of creature it is.

The one who draws her bow, that is the one

who knows what the next moment will be.

She will line up her arrow and change time

for what is standing in her sight.

Do you understand?

Who am I to you?

You are the hunter.

Do I have the
power to change your life?

Oh yes.

Do you see
before you a better life?

I do.

Do you take it upon yourself

to afford that better life?

I do.

One world falls
away, another is taking shape.

When the
ordeal ends, who's there?

Nobody's there.

That's what Lizzie believed.

She began walking in the
direction of never coming back.

What was the meaning of
the thing that happened?

The thing that had been
like a tornado in her life.

It's something that will always follow

and the howling of its anger behind her

is something she will have to
relish as she moves forward.

Aiming so earnestly for
a future tense of joy.

Nice work getting
your degree, Angela.

I'm surprised you stayed
around here though.

I'm exactly where I need to be.