Salvage (released as
Gruesome outside of the United States) is a 2006 horror movie by the Crook Brothers. Claire Parker finds herself reliving her brutal murder at the hands of Duke Desmond over and over again. As she tries to alter the circumstances, she learns more about Duke Desmond and what tie he has with her current fate.
This film contains examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Seemingly how Claire's time loops work. When she falls asleep, she dreams of an incident in Duke's life, then generally wakes up to a new start. Later in the movie, this is invoked by the police when she believes she fought off an attacking Duke.
- Book Ends / Ironic Echo: "Busy night?"
- Dead All Along: Claire, Jimmy, and Duke are all dead with Duke reliving the murder over and over again.
- Eye Scream: To escape Duke's grasp in the convenience store, Claire jams her thumbs into his eye sockets.
- Ghostly Gape: Figures start doing this in the background as the movie proceeds to the climax.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Partially averted in that, sometimes, Claire goes through multiple days, and events change with the iterations.
- Ironic Hell: Duke Desmond is trapped in a hell, being killed over and over, as he relives Claire Parker's death by his hands. Dante's The Divine Comedy is namechecked in the class that Claire is attending.
- Jerkass: Jimmy rather qualifies. Though it's entirely possible that this is only true for "Jimmy" in Duke's personal hell and that the real Jimmy was better than that.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Duke delivers several of these to Claire.
- Tear Off Your Face: Easily the most horrifying scene of the movie.
- Tears of Fear: "Claire"/Duke frequently breaks into tears at the climax of each loop.
- The Reveal: Claire and Jimmy have been murdered by Duke, who in turn was killed in a police shootout. "Claire" as we've seen her throughout the film is actually Duke Desmond's soul trapped in Claire's body, forced to relive his victim's murder by his own hand in an Ironic Hell.
- The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: When Duke is cornered by the police, he claims that voices in his head, caused by a secret implant, cause him to kill.
