Headscratchers / Get Out (2017)

Headscratchers pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

Rose's next target

• People seem to think that she was looking for another victim for the family on her computer, but she was researching the top NCAA prospects. Why would she target people who'd surely be missed?
  • They won't be missed because they won't disappear. They'll just suddenly change careers. Odd, but not something that would make people suspect they'd had another person's brain transplanted into their head.
  • Cockiness most likely...they have gotten away with their crimes for so long they think they can go after bigger fish.
  • And they see those they did all that to as little more than bodies, or they think they can get more money for a black man with a "pedigree" they could see the NCAA much like someone might see a purebred dog sale....
  • Alternatively, she might've just been getting her rocks off.
    • I never heard of someone getting their jollies fully clothed well eating cereal in the most pretentious way possible.. but then again she is a sociopath who seems to be enjoying getting choked.... so who knows what she gets off to?
  • The vast majority of college athletes never pan out into anything in the pros, and are quickly forgotten.
  • And having a wealthy WASPy family might be a good bait to lure an athlete in, in the hopes of getting powerful connections.

The elder Armitages

• Why were they content to act as servants in their own household? Did they Chris wouldn't believe they were family friends (or extended family)? I doubt they sought immortality so they could spend all their time serving tea and chopping wood.
  • My best guess is that the elder Armitages are so spitefully racist that they would act as servants when their brains are in the Black people they body-snatched.
  • Or they don't act as servants all the time, only as a cover when Rose brings over her victims.
  • ARE they acting as servants? Unless I've missed something, if you ignore the cover of them as such, they just as easily come off as (weird and creepy) sweet grandmother who keeps filling your drinks and an old grandpa who took gardening as a hobby. Armitages say they are servants to explain them to Chris and others, while letting them do their regular routines.
• That being said, I'm wondering why Chris didn't notice the red flag when Georgina was crying for literally no reason?
  • Past trauma or mental illness or something. A lot more likely explanation than "I'm fighting to regain control of my body from this old white bitch possessing it".

Not doing their jobs

• Why didn't the TSA officers take Rodney seriously? Even if his theory sounded ridiculous, he found a man who was missing for years and resurfaced acting completely different.
  • It's probably just Rule of Funny, but Rodney has no proof that a crime has been committed — it's not actually illegal for an adult to ditch their past life and resurface later with different habits and moving in different social circles. The audience knows something's seriously not right, but the priority on a missing adult resurfacing apparently unharmed, just acting different and behaving awkwardly when confronted, would probably be pretty low for law enforcement. (Compare it to when they misunderstand him talking about Chris — a child going missing for ~48 hours is a huge deal, but a 26-year-old man not responding to texts for the same period of time is lower priority.)
  • "it's not actually illegal for an adult to ditch their past life": it is if they assume a new name and allow the old persona to remain missing, presumed dead. If this weren't illegal, imagine all the taxes, bankruptcies, sex offender registries, court summons, et cetera, that people would avoid. Since Rod knows Andre is now going by Logan, the police would naturally assume Andre had (illegally) faked his death, even if Rod's interpretation is more out-there.
    • The one problem with this is Rod failed to mention that Andre was using a new name. Had he brought that part up, there might have been a slightly different response. You know, excepting the "sex slave" part.
  • Also Andre hadn't been missing for years, only months.
  • Also, it's not TSA officers. Rod spoke to actual police.
    • The police should have looked into Rod's story. Even if you don't believe the crazy "sex slave" talk, he none the less still had evidence that he found a man who's been missing for 6 months. And a fairly well known jazz musician at that. Seeing as how there were articles all over the internet about him being missing. Shouldn't they have tried to notify the guys family or whoever it was that reported him missing? Shouldn't they have at least sent someone to check on him to make sure he wasn't being held up there against his will? If nothing else, the cops should have jumped at the chance to able to clear one more missing persons case off their books. Chalk it up to incompetent cops.
    • The cops were incompetent, but Rod's "sex slaves" talk made him sound like a nut. Why not just print out Andre's picture along with "Logan's" and say "My friend Andre disappeared months ago. Another friend saw this guy who looks just like him, who appeared to be drugged and not acting right. Could you please check it out?"
    • Given that kidnapping and human trafficking are real things, the sex slave talk should not have made Rod sound like a nut. Not that they should assume his interpretation is 100% correct before investigating, but the situation sounds fishy enough for a professional to look into.

Camera flash in the middle of the day

• Why did Chris have his flash on when he was outside, on what looked like a bright summer day?
  • It's made very clear from his Oh, Crap! reaction he didn't mean to have the flash on when he took that picture.
  • Chris probably doesn't use his phone camera much, considering he is an accomplished photographer and always carries around a pretty monstrous camera.
  • Chris probably turned on the flash the last time he used it. The flash doesn't automatically turn off so, as one has already said, he didn't know about the flash being on.

Blind guy at silent auction

• How did the blind gallery owner participate in a silent auction?
  • He has an assistant (who was next to him when he first meets Chris) who is seen whispering in his ear.

The Groundskeeper talking weird

• We find out that the groundskeeper is really Grandpa Roman Armitage in a black guy's body. Even with the understandably tough adjustment of being in a black person's body, why was he talking so stilted and giving an obvious vibe that something's wrong? He didn't have to communicate in slang; he could have just said everything he said more naturally.
  • Typical villain overconfidence. He didn't care that Chris was unsettled by his weird, old timey manner of speech. From his POV it didn't matter if he taunted Chris because soon Chris would be in a position where he couldn't do anything about it.
  • He might have also thought himself Beneath Notice.
  • All of the three "possessed" black people we see act in a seriously creepy manner, and not just for the white people mannerisms they employ. Maybe the process doesn't quite give them perfect control over their new bodies.
    • Or maybe they're acting exactly the way they think they should, given their likely opinions of people who look like they now do. They've gentrified themselves, which is itself a notion of real world horror for many black communities.
• Roman Armitage is German (possibly) and has a thick accent in his creepy little Mr. Exposition video, so he could be speaking as such to cover that accent up.
  • On that note, English as a second language is possible.
  • Or since the process involves brain surgery, maybe the procedure isn't perfect and some of the brain is affected in a way.

Red Box

• Late in the film, Chris finds a red box containing pictures of all the victims Rose has lured to the Armitage estate in the past. He finds this in a tiny closet in Rose's room that already had the door open. The only reason he didn't see the box earlier is that he didn't want to snoop around the first time he saw the little room with the door open. Why would Rose just leave something like that just lying around? As implied earlier, Chris could have found that box before being hypnotized. Even if the Armitages were certain they had Chris, why take that chance?
• It's possible the housekeeper left it for Chris to find. She was already showing signs of resistance without a camera flash to help her. All she had to do was "forget" to close one door.
  • It was definitely Georgina. She made a sound to draw his attention to it.
• To add to the question, why even keep a box with photos around. That's pretty incriminating, obviously not to any bystanders but to someone who had been "chosen" and was suspicious, they could have found something like that on their own. Is it a Creepy Souvenir or something else? Furthermore why would Georgina even know such a thing existed. Did some other transplant "reveal" it to her? Or do the Armitages just like looking at those pictures a lot?
  • Knowing Rose, it's not entirely unreasonable to suggest she'd want to have a record of all her "conquests" near her, probably to look at and reminisce over every now and then. Sure, it risks them being found out, but if the phone call with Rod is any indication, Rose values her... desires a lot more than secrecy.
    • As I recall, Rose had framed pictures of her former victims above the bed when she's googling her next victims. She's clearly proud of them.
    • [CONFIRMED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HwLyRIz5w]
  • It's not uncommon for obsessive compulsive sociopathic criminals to keep souvenirs of their crimes, even to their own detriment. Like Dexter collecting the blood samples of his victims. There are also many, many real life examples of this too, like Jeffery Dahmer keeping body parts in his refrigerator, or John Wayne Gacy burying dozens of bodies ON HIS OWN PROPERTY! Who knows why they do this. Maybe its some sick sense of accomplishment they feel from hurting people.
  • One of the defining traits of a serial killer is keeping trophies of their victims. If they don't take trophies, in some form, they are not a "true" serial killer. If one assumes that Death of Personality counts as killing from her perspective, then she is most definitely a serial killer (significant downtime between "kills", favored victim type, elaborate ritual, trophies).
    • I'm not sure this is actually true, as there are plenty of serial killers who don't keep trophies (or at least weren't found to have done so). However, it is a pretty common behavior for them, so it's not outlandish at all that Rose would do so, especially since she keeps the box in a place where it's unlikely anyone would find it. This is definitely a case of Reality Is Unrealistic.

Why would she bring a photographer?

• If a camera flash is the one thing that temporarily breaks the hypnosis and allows the Coagula victims to briefly regain control of their old selves, why on earth would Rose choose a photographer as a target? She had to know that he was going to want to take pictures while he was around, and one flash ran the risk of blowing the roof off their entire scheme.
  • They might have not known about the "trigger" till that point.
  • Also worth remembering that it was likely Jim's request. He tells Chris in their first meeting that he was a fan of his eyes for photography, and later on mentioned specifically that he wanted Chris' eyes.

Andre's presence

• How did they lure Andre to the town in the first place? He's wandering around, apparently lost, but I couldn't tell what he was looking for. Did he get lured up there by Rose? Veronica-that-he-used-to-see (per Rod)?
  • From the info that pops up when Rod Bing searches for him, Andre was an accomplished musician — could it have been related to a commission or a gig?
  • Oh, good call. If that's the case, given who accosts him, I'd assume it was the Armitages that hired him — which then makes me wonder why they didn't just get him to the house and grab him there, for simplicity's sake. Presumably, they got him intentionally lost, since he's easily found; maybe they wanted the element of surprise?
    • As far as your question about why they couldn't just lure him to the house, they needed to get him alone. The guy was a jazz musician. If they wanted to invite him out under the guise of doing a gig there would have been no reason for him not to bring the rest of his band with along.
    • It seems possible the Armitages gave the rest of Andre's band different directions, maybe even actually hiring them to perform minus Andre, while giving Andre purposefully incorrect or nonsensical addresses or directions.
    • With Andre getting abducted on the streets the Armitages could easily just say that he never arrived at their house. The police might think he got lost or something or (more likely) got abducted on his way there.
  • Maybe they asked him to talk in person before planning to hire him - giving a plausible reason for why he would come alone. If the parents do this then Andre might assume that as they're older they're not comfortable using Skype or Facetime. Or if he was to play at the house, they might suggest he come and check it out so he could get an idea of the acoustics and space.
  • During the scene in which Andre is kidnapped, he starts out on the phone with someone saying how he was dropped off at the wrong street. He says that he meant to go to a place nearby, but he got the street name wrong. Jeremy is also the one who abducts him and given that he's shown to be messier and more unhinged, it's not unlikely that he would just abduct someone randomly, contrasted with Rose's system of playing the long game. It's possible that Andre was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

1936 Olympics

• The timeline in this movie seems kinda wonky. It seems implausible that Rose's grandfather would have been old enough to participate in the 1936 Olympics; he'd have to have been born in 1918 at the absolute bare minimum (to be 18 to participate), making him likely over 100 years old. He was still alive when Rose was a kid, at the very least. Rose is presumably close to Chris in age (26) or her actress (28), so that would be quite a generation gap.
  • Perhaps a case of Reality Is Unrealistic? I know of at least one friend's extended family when I lived in rural Missouri who had multiple people 100+ years of age and more independent than my grandparents at 70.
  • It's not that implausible, though. I was born in '90 (making me about the same age as Rose) and my grandfather was born in '19 (my father was born in '58, so the timeline isn't ever particularly stretched, he was only 38 when he had him). He died, still in relatively very good physical and mental condition, when I was 20. My grandma was only a few years younger and she too died when I was in my early 20s.
• The video explaining the Coagula process shows the original Roman Armitage alive and familiar with the process while Rose and Jeremy are young children, and we see Rose with Walter and Georgina in photographs as at least a 20something, so either Rose is also older than she looks or Walter and Georgina are a later round of enslaved bodies as replacements for the Armitage grandparents' earlier set of host bodies, artificially prolonging their lives by skipping to new bodies when the past ones grew too old/decayed as well. If you assume they're already on round two, undergoing the procedure a second more recent time, his natural timespan could have ended slightly more plausibly at 80 or so. Rose's grandmother in her original body might have been younger than her husband, and men remain fertile much longer than women. So it's possible, just (like most things involving the Armitage clan) extremely squicky and assisted by mad science.
• Actually, if you think about it, it does make some sense. First, assuming that Roman was born somewhere between 1910 and 1918, and that Rose was born either in the late '80s or early '90s, he'd either be in his mid-to-late 70s or early 80s by the time of her birth. The Rose shown in that video looked somewhere between 6-8 years old, 10 at the most, so Roman, by that logic, would, at the most, be in his late 80s or early 90s at the time the video was made. He wouldn't be over a century old. Now, as for the idea of Walter not being his first host, well, we don't know when Walter was subjected to the procedure, and Rose did have several previous victims that could have been hosts for Roman at one time or another, so that's still up in the air.

Cotton Earplugs

• How did Chris put the cotton in his ears when his arms were strapped to the chair?
  • He gathered up the cotton in his hands, then bent down his head to where his hands were, one side at a time. It would be difficult and painful, but not necessarily impossible, especially in a life-or-death panic and when we see he still can manipulate his hands enough to scratch open the leather armchair in the first place.
  • He bites at the belt restraints in an earlier scene, so he clearly can put his head close to his hands.
  • Try it yourself, assuming you're in a chair with arms; unless you have an extremely stiff back or neck, you should be able to get your head within touching distance of your hands quite easily.
• The real question is: knowing that the teacup sound is a trigger, and Missy was initially unaccounted for, why didn't he leave the cotton plugs in his ears?!?
  • Because that would make it hard for him to hear footsteps, and limiting his hearing would only hinder his chances of being able to get out of the Armitage house

About The Transplant

• Goes in lines with Cut Lex Luthor a Check, but aside from the political commentary of the movie, why did they have to kidnap random people to use as hosts for their body-snatching procedure? There are people in hospitals who are essentially "brain dead" but still alive and with brain stems in working order that might serve as viable hosts without submitting the original owners of those bodies to mental torture and risking any of them either breaking free of the hypnosis to screw with their plans or enact violent revenge, or the other possibility of having folks who would know that these people are missing and be looking for them with full knowledge of what direction to start in especially given that Rose has lured victims to her family's home before.
  • There are two problems with this idea. First of all, breaking into a hospital and stealing a living patient isn't as easy as you might think, and even if Rose or Jeremy managed to pull it off multiple times, there'd probably be a massive panic once the third or fourth victim inexplicably goes missing. Secondly, the townspeople are specifically looking for healthy, able-bodied black people, and brain-dead hospital patients aren't exactly in top physical form.
    • Additionally, it's outright stated that the consciousness of the victim is still needed on some level. A braindead patient isn't going to work.

Bothering Chris

• Why did the parents and the son specifically go out of their way to make Chris feel uncomfortable and unwelcome (making repeated reference to Chris' race, Rose's brother being explicitly rude to him, etc)? Even if they were doing it subconsciously, Rose comments on the way her parents are acting, so she's clearly aware of it and could tell them to stop if she thought it would benefit their plan. One of the indicators that something was wrong and that Chris needed to get out was the way he was being treated. Surely if they were planning on completing the transplant with minimal resistance, it would have made more sense to make Chris feel welcome so he didn't suspect anything was up? Was this just a traditional case of villain incompetence?
  • I suppose it doesn't really matter. All they had to do was keep Chris there for one night to hypnotize him and that's all they really had to do. There wasn't a real reason to be overly kind to him because he was done for anyway.
  • Alternatively, given the film's satirical edge, the fact that they simply weren't able to overlook his race when interacting with him may be the entire point.
  • It's also likely that they behaved this way to cover up the predictable and overt racist behaviour of the affluent white folks at the Armitage's party, who are essentially there to size up Chris and bid on his body. Rose makes sure to plant in Chris's mind that these are a strange, uber-white bunch, and this is easily supported by her family's awkward behaviour, leading to Chris mostly dismissing the strange treatment he encounters at the party as more of the same.
    • It also seems plausible that they did it on purpose to create a juxtaposition between their behavior and Rose's to strengthen Chris's trust in her so he would stay for her even when things got uncomfortable (like with the people at the party). This way, he would love and trust Rose right up to the very last second.
  • This does seem to be the reason, as Rose is always reacting with embarrassment at how her family and friends behave. This serves to put her on Chris's side, and she never defends her family at all.

Rose Ignores Downstairs

• As soon as Chris breaks free, he goes on a rampage killing off Rose's family one by one. How did Rose not hear/acknowledge Chris killing off Jeremy and her mother which all happened downstairs while she was just upstairs in her room? Chris didn't kill them off so quietly. I know she had earphones on but still.
  • Perhaps this shows a darker side of her character that she was willing to let her father, mother and brother all get slaughtered to receive a bigger share of the profits from her family's program.
    • Unless she is incredibly proficient in brain surgery and hypnotism, she wouldn't be able to get ANY profits if her mother and father died, though. This makes the answer suggested above very unlikely.
    • Maybe she doesn't want to continue the operation and just wants to inherit her family's likely substantial fortune and move to Hawaii or something.
  • Then perhaps did she did hear the commotion going on but she chose not to intervene thinking that her mother or brother could handle taking down Chris as neither of them ever called out her name for help.
  • She didn't hear it.
  • She had headphones on and simply didn't hear it. And it isn't like the fights were very loud. He killed the father down in the basement lab far away from Rose's room, and only ran him through with the dear head, It wasn't very loud. Chris killed the mother by strangling her with again, very little noise. And the fight with the brother was a little noisier but not loud enough to where someone upstairs with headphones blasting in both ears could possibly hear it.

Strangulation

• Why does Chris try to strangle Rose at the climax? If he wanted to kill her, why not shoot her with the rifle or if it's out of bullets, bludgeon her?
  • Strangulation is more personal.
  • And out of universe, if Chris used the rifle then his prints would be on it. If he just tries to strangle her - and then stops - there's less evidence tying him to attacking her.

That Smirk

• What was with Rose smirking at the end while Chris was choking her? Did she realize he wasn't going to go through with it? Did she tap into some hidden subconscious stuff her mother planted? Did she hear what she thought was a police car coming? Was she just crazy?
  • For me as a viewer I thought it was a nonverbal Like You Would Really Do It moment — she's looking into his eyes totally aware that, Roaring Rampage of Revenge aside, Chris is not a violent man. Choking to death the woman you love with your bare hands as she lies bleeding on the ground, even if you just found out she's an evil psycho, is very different from taking somebody out in a fight. She could be trying to goad him into doing it, or just enjoying the prospect of Chris going down in flames after he's discovered to have been the sole survivor out of a mansion full of dead white people.
  • Erotic Asphyxiation — Given everything we have seen up to this moment, Rose is an undeniable sociopath with some deep seated issues. It isn't out of the question to suggest that she was deriving sexual pleasure from the act, possibly tied to some sadomasochist murder fetish. Cheryl Tunt anybody?
    • The script itself states as much: Rose is enjoying getting choked out.

Evidence of Attempted Murder

• Why does Rodney simply pick up Chris, and leave. Why doesn't he, with Chris, pick up Rose's corpse with her rifle as evidence of attempted murder? While it's not much, at least he wouldn't be seen as a fringe by the police.
  • Because that would be tampering with a crime scene.
  • He didn't want a risk of Rose attacking them in the police car, like what her gran did to Chris earlier (granted, Rod didn't know that).
  • They just wanted to get out of there. Remember that nobody living knows Chris's last name or anything about him other than he's a twentysomething black photographer. Walter and Rose both had guns, which would explain the carnage, and the house is likely to burn down. The rural police will probably assume Walter and/or Rose went nuts and did the deed themselves. Chris and Rod can just go home and pretend none of this ever happened (whilst staying the hell away from silver spoons and teacups). As for Andre, there's probably nothing they can do for him.
  • Also, the police didn't take Rod seriously when he reported Chris's disappearance. He should be less than willing to let them take care of it.
  • Also, two black men driving around with a murdered white woman in their car? Probably not a good idea.
  • Walter's fingerprints are on the rifle which was used to shoot Rose. It would be ruled a murder/suicide which isn't untrue... The only problem would be the white folk attempting to give an anonymous tip or some fingerprints or DNA coming up...

Previous individuals

• Did every Victim have a vice that "needed" hypnotism to be cured? Chris smokes which provides a good reason to help him, but did every other person the family targeted for possession have a behavior that they could use as an excuse for the hypnosis or was it something else?
  • She could have offered to demonstrate it for them. Chris didn't especially consent to the session or what was happening when she started bringing up his trauma right away.
• Probably. It may not necessarily be a vice that needs curing, but any emotional issue that someone might see a therapist for. Rose likely spends months getting to know each victim before luring them in, so during that time she could find out about something about them to use as an excuse for hypnosis. Or just gaslight the victim into thinking they need hypnosis if she can't find anything to work with.
  • This seems to be the more likely of the two. It's sort of implied by Missy's actions and conversations with Chris that the information she's looking for isn't some sort of vice to fixate on, but rather a deep-rooted emotional trauma that she can dredge up in order to literally paralyze her given victim with fear. It seemed to me that her "curing" Chris's smoking habit was just a "test run", so to speak, to make sure he would be emotionally malleable enough for the real Coagula process.
  • But what about the people whom the brother just snatches off the street? How can they determine what THESE people's demons are in order to have a key hypnosis point? I'm pretty sure you won't be in the mood to have a heart to heart with people who just knocked you out, tied you up and dragged you away.
    • I'm pretty sure the implication was that Rose, or someone else in their group, had led Andre to that spot to be kidnapped. Otherwise, they'd also have no idea if he's physically healthy enough or worth body-swapping. It was probably much the same process, just different in how they went about trapping him.

Make sure she's dead!

• I've seen enough horror movies to know that you should make sure the villain is dead after attacking him or her. Chris leaves Rose and her gun lying on the ground. I was expecting her to get back up and shoot his friend while they were having their little chit chat in the cop car. Sure she dies, but I would have made sure she stays dead before driving off with my friend.
  • Good point, but I think the reason Chris and Rod didn’t drive off immediately is because Rose was too weak to actually get back up. Though considering how manipulative and calculating Rose is, I still wouldn’t have underestimated her though, and would have just driven off right away.

Using her real name

• Why would Rose use her birth name when abducting people? Unless the entire family have a false last name, cops could track her down. Also, she makes the mistake of meeting the victims' friends who can...you know...IDENTIFY her when their friends go missing.
  • I'm guessing because if Rose uses a fake name, she might get found out much sooner. What if someone she knows through a previous victim bumps into her in public and calls her by that name? What if there are other records of her with a different name? Rose's cover seems to be of a normal twenty-something girl living in the city - so it would be easier for her to live in the city under her real name. Rose seems to be a pretty great actress, as Rod doesn't suspect anything is wrong with her specifically until he talks to her on the phone. So part of Rose's cover is seeming like a nice girl who would be the last person suspected of being involved with such things.
  • It would've been problematic if she used a fake name when the cop asked to see her ID earlier in the movie. "Alright, Miss Armitage, you're clear" "Armitage? But you said your name was..."

How did Rose not notice the camera flash on Walter?

• When Roman (controlling Walter) has Chris pinned to the ground, Chris uses his phone’s camera flash on Roman, allowing Walter to regain control. While Rose did not witness the time when Chris flashed Andre at the Order’s gathering, she was present when her father gave the "seizure" excuse to Chris, and revealed the cause was the flash. If that’s the case, why did Rose give Walter the rifle? She should have known at that point that her grandfather had lost control of Walter’s body.
  • How far away was Rose when the camera flashed? Walter's body could have been blocking the majority of the flash, considering he's a pretty bulky guy. And with the house burning in the background, maybe her eyes were affected by the smoke and heat.
  • I don’t think Rose was that far away, considering that she’s able to get near to Walter and Chris a few seconds after the flash. Though, I did think that the main reason that Rose didn’t notice was because of Walter’s body, I just wasn’t sure. It also helps that Rose was near the tree that Jeremy’s car crashed into, so the smoke emitting from the engine could have blocked her eyesight until she passed through it, combined with both of the factors you mentioned.
  • Probably for the same reason she didn't notice/get suspicious when Walter didn't sound the same (he didn't bother even TRYING to code switch) when asking her for the gun, Jeremy wears a very distinctive helmet and plays music somewhat loudly when abducting Andre in the middle of the quiet suburbs, the whole party is brazen about sizing up Chris, and Rose first confidently gets confrontational with the white cop and later smiles when she sees siren lights, while in both cases Chris exasperatedly moves to comply and just get things over with: one of the key factors of white privilege is comparatively assuming your safety in the majority of situations. In the Armitages' case, they basically think they're untouchable. Rose is probably the best example of this in the whole film.

Potential hitches in the plan

• What would happen if Rose tried to seduce someone who, for whatever reason, wasn't interested? Or if they needed a woman for the procedure but couldn't find one that wasn't gay/bisexual? Would Jeremy step in then?
  • I assume that if Rose’s charms didn’t work, Jeremy would just kidnap them. He did it with Andre.
  • There's plenty of ways they could lure someone to the house. In today's age of everyone being connected online, it would be super easy to find out the potential victim's interests or career. Say there's a woman who's an artist - they could hire her and convince her to come to the house for whatever reasons. Or she's a dog lover - they could strike up a friendship over that and then invite her for a weekend to meet the parents.
  • Or they could have even just given up and moved on to someone else. Plenty of fish in the sea, and at that point He Knows Too Much wouldn't be an issue.
  • Perhaps for a woman they advertised for someone to work at the house - possibly as a housekeeper or assistant, putting up the appearance of two old folks who need some extra help - and rejected any white applicants. Maybe in that event they even advertised the position as live-in to cover up why whoever would suddenly move there.

Rose flirting with Rod

• What was the deal with Rose trying to proposition Rod over the phone when he called looking for Chris? Was she hoping he'd want to be with her, and then her family could bodysnatch him too? That seems unlikely, since he was already very suspicious of her and wouldn't easily let himself be manipulated. Besides, doesn't she realise that her aggressive flirting (as opposed to the seemingly innocent, teasing way she does it in their first interaction) is just going to raise more red flags for Rod, and make him more likely to come and intervene?
  • She knew he was recording her, and wanted to make it sound like he was the one interested in her to nullify the recording. What he recorded would be useless at best, and at worst would incriminate him in the event it was found. She isn't worried about him intervening, because even if he were to arrive, it would have been too late.

Logan King/Andre and his wife at the party

• Why did Logan/Andre and Philomena even go to the party? They obviously weren't there to buy another black body, since Logan already had one, and they weren't offering a young woman that would be suitable for Philomena. Wouldn't they realise that the presence of just one, very strange young black man would freak out Chris (especially since it seems that Logan's transformation is fairly recent, and he might not have total control over Andre's body yet)? I know they probably just wanted to see their friends and show off Andre's body, but it seems too risky, especially since there are no other coagula'ed people in attendance.
  • They wouldn't be aware of any risk. It's clear that the effect of the phone camera flash was unknown given how the group reacted. They had no reason to believe it could come undone. Also, I doubt these individuals thought that Chris seeing Andre (even though the one stereotype - that all people of a certain race know each other - would have clued them in on this flaw. )
  • In attendance, no; on the premises, yes. There's no way the guests don't know about Walter and Georgina, both of whom act very similarly to Andre/Logan. And no, they probably didn't think the presence of one other black person would make Chris freak out, nor would they necessarily think Andre/Logan would come off as acting strangely to Chris. In real life, if you're an obvious minority at a party or gathering and the people there know there's another person of your same minority, they actually tend to deliberately put you two together on the stereotypical assumption you'll automatically get along, even if you're nothing alike and are more likely to hate each other. It's a pretty common occurrence.
  • Also he may he there as an example. Walter and Georgina could be any shmuck off the street paid to act like Rose's grandparents. Having Logan there who everyone else knew for sure living with his wife in a black man's body, well, they could confirm that it really was Logan. While the others may have known Rose's grandparents, Walter and Georgina tend to avoid people during these parties and people may assume it's not really them in there. With Logan, the wife can confirm as an authority outside the family that, yes, that is her husband with all of his memories and that Andre isn't just a paid actor. After all, if Walter and Georgina were actors, the family could feed them personality traits and events to "prove" they were the grandparents. If Andre was an actor, they probably couldn't give him personal details that only exist between him and his supposed wife.

Would Jim get what he wants from Chris?

• So obviously being blind he needs someone's eyes and Chris would work as well as anyone for that. But isn't it Chris's brain and how he interprets things and not his literal eyes that make him so good? I feel like he didn't think this through and was going to be pretty disappointed he just gets perfectly normal eyes.
  • It's an example of the would-be bodysnatchers not thinking ahead, much like how Grandpa Roman still isn't able to beat Jesse Owens's time in his new body. They believe it's the easy answer to whatever their life lacks, but "no matter where you go, there you are." In Jim's case, he may have a leg up due to already understanding photographic arts (being a critic), but Chris has had YEARS to practice his craft, while Jim would have had to learn everything from depth perception to reading English.
    • Jim wasn't blind from birth, he mentions going blind later in life, so he wouldn't need to relearn anything. The lack of practice in photography would still be an issue.
  • WE know that, but who's to say Jim does?

Victim Paradox

• So, did the villains only use African-Americans because they're racist and feel no more qualms about harming them then they do about stomping on a bug? But then, if they're THAT racist, wouldn't becoming African-American disgust them...? I would think a racist would kill themselves if they woke up one morning in the body of the race they hate.
  • The reason the Armitages target black people is because they're envious of them, which all started simply because Roman Armitage lost against Jesse Owens; they believe that black people are physically superior than them, and that's why they pull their Grand Theft Me operation. It is still disgustingly racist (and petty), but instead, it's an extremely cruel and disturbing case of positive discrimination. That's the entire point of the movie.
  • There's also the pragmatic approach to the fact that they're kidnapping these people. The police and media largely don't pay as much attention to a person of colour going missing as they would to say a white woman (we even have a trope for that) - so choosing a black person gives them the added bonus of more time to perform the procedure before the mainstream media gets suspicious.
  • The villains love black bodies. But they clearly think lesser of black minds.

Camera flash questions

• So if camera flashes are strong enough to "break the trance" in affected people, would any sudden flash of bright light do the trick? Like if any of them witnessed an explosion, or if they were in a dark room and the lights were suddenly turned on.
  • A little WMG perhaps, but probably—I'm guessing it has to do with how expected the trigger is. A sudden explosion or flash is startling and without warning, but turning on a light tends to have some signs beforehand that it's going to happen. The "parasitic" brain has more defense against expected interruptions than unexpected and can brace accordingly.

The original bodies

• What do the Armitages do with the original bodies of the people who take the brain surgery operation? Assuming they succeeded in transferring Jim's mind into Chris's body, then what? Jim is said to be a famous art dealer, so it would absolutely attract attention if his old body went missing while a black man with his same name takes over his old life.
  • The original bodies probably "died in their sleep" and had a peaceful funeral a few days later. For most folks, that'd be enough, and if their surviving spouse decides to suddenly become involved with a young black person a few weeks later, that's not enough to do anything beyond raising a few eyebrows. In Jim's case, he could make a change to his will before undergoing the Coagula procedure to bequeath all of his possessions to Chris Washington; afterwards, Jim "dies", Chris-with-Jim's-brain inherits Jim's estate, and now there's a brilliant young photographer who's also an influential art dealer calling the shots.

Other

• Why does Rose call the police when they hit the deer on the way up to her parents' house? Before the reveal, it just seems like it's establishing Rose as a well-meaning but clueless white woman — she doesn't hesitate to call the police for something that doesn't really require police involvement because it didn't occur to her that calling the cops might have negative consequences for her black boyfriend. However, after the reveal, it seems extremely unlikely that Rose would want to call the police unnecessarily while so close to her parents' house, leading to the cop seeing her with Chris when it would be better for them if no one knew he had been there.
  • Actually, if she didn't call the cops right after the deer was hit, and the carcass was eventually found, there's a very good chance that the death of the deer would be linked back to Rose when she either took the car in for repairs or was spotted with a large dent in the fender. She was trying to prevent the accident from devolving into Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot by reporting the accident right after it happened.
    • This is not really a believable possibility, though. Unless it involves an exotic or endangered animal (which deer are not) or triggers a serious or multi-vehicle accident (which it didn't in this case), police don't waste their time investigating a road-killed animal.
    • Many times it's more of a hassle to get the insurance company to fix your car if you don't have a police report filed. She wants her van fixed after all.
• Most of the Armitages and their friends aren't aware of the racist microaggressions they are committing. Sure, they know they are abducting black people and all. But they aren't aware that saying "black is in fashion" and similar comments are racist. Unlike Rose, who is aware of it all. So why hasn't Rose ever pointed this out to her family and friends before? Maybe because she enjoys it. Maybe it's part of her game, that the black partners she brings along get more and more uneasy, until it climaxes with them seeing her photos, which she deliberately left for them to find.
  • Alternatively, Rose may think that her progressive young white woman act is more persuasive if she's not too over the top with it. Any white person with prejudiced older relatives can tell you that confronting them about every problematic thing they say or do is pretty difficult and often only leads to arguments which don't succeed in changing the prejudiced person's mind. As a result many white people, in order to avoid disharmony and constant emotionally grueling fights with their family, pick and choose their battles and only call out really egregious instances of bigotry or wait for the right teachable moment to do so without triggering a fight. Rose's "my parents are embarrassing and a bit clueless but don't mean badly" stance comes across as a very believable behavior for someone in this situation if you're a white person who's ever been in it yourself, and it's possible she thinks it's what will put her victims most at ease as well. Chris shows himself to prefer avoiding confrontation when faced with racist microaggresions (as with his reactions to the cop and some of the subtly racist things people at the garden party say to him), so if Rose was too aggressive in confronting every last problematic thing anyone else said or did he might find it excessive or even suspicious, and the same might be true of her previous victims.
• A major one involves why Rose's approach to ensnaring victims has never aroused suspicion before. She's been involved in numerous intimate relationships with black partners who subsequently disappeared, and is clearly not averse to being public about or documenting these relationships, so it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult for anyone investigating to establish that she was a common link in multiple missing persons cases and identify her as a prime suspect. Many a real life Serial Killer has been caught through precisely this method. One could argue that she got away with it because as an affluent young white woman she was given the benefit of the doubt to an absurd degree as a result of institutional prejudice or that she was careful to select only victims who wouldn't have anyone likely to come looking for them (again as is often the case with real killers), but the movie doesn't establish either of these things, and in fact establishes the opposite with Chris (his parents are gone, but he has a very close friend in Andre who knows Rose and is a law enforcement officer to boot). Andre bringing his suspicions to the cops and having them dismissed is Played for Laughs in the movie, as Chris had only been missing for two days at that point, but probably wouldn't be if he were missing for a week or longer, and Rose would be the first person police would want to talk to.