Thomas Marchese’s supernatural thriller From Black is a story about loss, grief, and the decision to go through the hardest of trials to get somebody’s loved one back. Starring Anna Camp, Jennifer Lafleur, John Ales, and Travis Hammer, From Black is about Cora Loewen, who agrees to undergo a dangerous ritual to get her dead son back. Although the premise sounds interesting, poor direction and bad storytelling techniques make the movie rather unsatisfactory to watch.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘From Black’?
This supernatural thriller brings us the tragic story of recovering addict Cora Loewen, who lost her son Noah, and what happens when she learns there’s a process by which she can bring him back. The support group leader, Abel, befriends Cora and gets her to agree to a ritual by which she can get Noah back. However, things invariably go wrong in the end, and people end up dying. Does Cora find her son at the end of the ritual, or is she destined for yet another heartbreak? Here’s what happens in the story:
Cora’s Story
The non-linear storytelling technique of From Black constantly switches back and forth between the past and the present, making it confusing at first. To help you better understand, here’s the story right from the start.
Cora Loewen was a heroin addict, and there were few things that were below her that she wouldn’t do for drugs. On one such day, when she got high with her deadbeat partner Wyatt, her son Noah had left home and probably was kidnapped and murdered if her dream-like sequence is to be believed. However, before becoming a drug-addicted junkie, Cora used to be a good mother, often playing hide-and-seek with Noah, his favorite game. After losing her son and having the cops storm the dirty trailer house she used to shack up in with Wyatt, Cora was forced to get her act together. She remained sober for around seven years and even joined a therapy group where people who had lost loved ones would convene. One day, she finally opened up about losing her son and what it meant to her to have the child whom she loved so much taken from her. She wonders if she should give up hope of Noah ever coming back, but she can’t decide since her heart doesn’t want to give up. Abel Turner, the group leader, listens to her monologue intently.
Meeting Abel
Cora worked as a waitress in a bowling place/ deli, and one day Abel showed up for a meal. The two sat down, and Abel mentioned how the pin Cora was wearing was also his daughter’s favorite before she died. He also told a story about how the plot of “Finding Nemo” might just be in the male clownfish’s head, and the two became friends. A few days later, Abel showed up at Cora’s place and asked her why she stopped coming to the group, but she responded that she couldn’t handle it anymore. Abel said something that Cora didn’t see coming—he said there was a way Cora could get Noah back, just like how Abel got his daughter back from the dead. Cora pushed him out, calling him crazy, and slammed the door in his face. However, Cora met Abel and asked to learn about the process by which he’d gotten his daughter back. He explained that there’s an old Mesopotamian ritual and that it’s a rather complex process, and after a little deliberation, Cora agrees to participate.
The Ritual
In Cora’s house, she gathers the ingredients, and Abel makes her go through an extensive process to purify her body, ties her ankle to a chain, and reminds her to stay inside a circle made of salt, no matter what. Thus begins the ritual, and although initially skeptical, Cora begins believing after she suddenly begins floating in the air. Day after day, the process continues, with newer levels being crossed to get back the one who’s gone, including the grief stage, where Cora witnesses Noah getting kidnapped and murdered. But she can’t act. On one such day, Wyatt shows up, beats up Cora and Abel, and steals money from his wallet.
The final day of the ritual arrives, and a goat is brought to be sacrificed later. Abel constantly reminds her not to leave the circle, but when he begins retching up small animal bones and spitting black blood, she flees. Later, from Abel’s body comes out a monstrous creature, the one who shall grant a life back from the dead in exchange for a newer vessel. Cora offers the goat as a sacrifice and is transported to a wheat field, where Abel offers her three chunks of raw goat meat that she’s forced to eat—all part of the ritual. However, when she refuses to finish the gooey, tar-like liquid from a goblet and drops to the ground, Abel goes mad with rage, and Cora is brought back to her home, replete with blood, goat intestines, and all the weird symbols she’d drawn. The monster demands a vessel, and she offers up Wyatt, but it rejects the junkie because his body is unclean and then begins chasing her. It’s at this moment that she calls 911, and the first scene happens where we see a sergeant enter the home and make her way to Cora, sitting amidst a pool of blood.
The Holding Cell
Cora sits in the cell, not answering the cops anything until another sergeant shows up and tells her colleagues the woman inside the cell is Cora Loewen, and she knows this because the sergeant is her elder sister, Alison. Cora then gingerly explains the entire story to Alison, despite her several misgivings and her abject disbelief in the things her sister says, mainly because Alison thinks Cora has relapsed into her drug habit. Cora also adds that Alison can look up Abel’s daughter, who has moved to some town with her mother and changed her name, and Abel is to join them in a while.
After Cora finishes her story, Alison takes her to the shower and waits as her sister cleans herself up to be taken to the holding cell. Alison also finds out from a deputy that, indeed, a girl exactly like the Turner girl who’d died had her picture taken in a school last week. Alison leaves Cora in the holding cell to go check out her sister’s home, as Cora keeps screaming not to be left alone because she knows the monster wants to use her as a vessel.
‘From Black’ Ending Explained – Does Cora Get Her Son Back?
Cora’s fear is soon realized as all the lights in the cell go dark, and the raspy, bestial voice asks her for a bargain while her sister Alison arrives at Noah’s room while investigating Cora’s house. It asks if she’d do anything to get her son back, and she agrees, and it draws nearer with each agreement. The moment Cora agrees to let the monster in, Alison opens the closet in Noah’s room, and her face squinches in shock as two little feet can be seen, and Noah’s voice says, “Boo.”
Cora’s son Noah does come back because she completed the ritual, where the creature inhabits the body of someone, or the vessel, in exchange for the life of someone who’d died. Cora finally lets go of her horror and accepts her fate to become the vessel for the monster so that her son can be granted life. Noah comes back to life exactly as he was on the day when he died, while his mother is cursed with becoming the vessel of the creature until she can pass it on to another grieving person and win her freedom back. Thus, the cycle continues, and the creature survives by moving from person to person.