Directed and produced by Mitesh Patel, Woman in the Maze is a horror film that shows the desperate attempts of a woman to escape a house. The story revolves around Gabrielle, a real estate agent who has come to live in Hannah’s house for a few days in the ghost town of Jerome. She ends up getting lost in the maze of the house due to a curse, while her lover has been trying his best to rescue her. Starring actors like Meredith VanCuyk and Joey Heyworth, the film seems to be quite a promising one! Will Gabbi be able to find her way out of the house? What had caused the house to become cursed? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
What Experiences Did Judy Have With Jerome?
Gabrielle had been promoted from the post of project manager to assistant manager at a real estate company. She had come to Jerome, the haunted town of America, to sell some land there. She had planned on meeting Owen Bannister, one of the real estate agents in Jerome, to help her look at the properties that were to be sold. While showing her the properties, he tells her that Conner Hotel, one of the properties in Jerome, was haunted. He told her that Mrs. Anna Hopkins had found her husband cheating on her with the school teacher, causing her to throw acid on her face. The school teacher had been haunting the place since then! She also hears from another man that the theater is haunted, as a couple got into a fight after the husband found the wife cheating on him and had strangled her there, causing the woman’s spirit to haunt the place. The entire town was replete with stories of infidelity and murders, earning it the title of ‘ghost town.’ While Judy is out on a stroll inside a bookstore, a strange woman appears and tells her that Judy wants her out of Hannah’s house. On asking the lady who Hannah was, she disappeared! Later at night, Judy has a nightstalker and finds out that it is Owen, and he has gone to confess his feelings for her. Knowing of his feelings, she tells him off by saying that she is interested in girls.
What Significance Did The Nightmares Have?
During her stay at Hannah’s house, Gabbi was constantly having nightmares. On one occasion, she saw that some people, whose faces were covered, were chanting a mantra in the basement. There is a probability that the basement was used for some black magic ritual in the past. She also got visions of a woman in her dreams and recognized her as Judy. She was giving her signs and signals to escape the house, which Gabbi did not pay much heed to initially. She also saw Judy in bed with a man, which was a sign of a deep-rooted history of infidelity in the house, which had caused some sort of murderous incident there, resulting in it being haunted.
What Incident Had Resulted In The House Being Cursed?
When Gabbi understands that the house is haunted, she tries to escape, but no matter how many attempts she makes, she is unable to do so! When she tries to escape, something or another happens, preventing her from leaving the house. When she tries to find a way out of the house, all the doors seem to become walls. In her attempts to leave the house, she hurts herself and ends up in the basement. Gabbi found a dead body there and a diary beside it. The diary belonged to Judy, in which she had written about her infidelity towards her husband, Angus. She had been hurt by the way Angus had blamed her for the loss of their baby and cheated on him. Later, when Angus found out about his wife’s infidelity, he tried trapping her inside the house. When she tried to escape the house, he dragged her back inside and choked her to death. He then cursed the house with a doll and with his blood, saying that the house would capture, consume, any woman who would enter the house. This had caused Gabbi to feel trapped inside the house, no matter how much she tried to break free. Angus’ angst towards women had been revealed through the way he sealed the fate of any woman who entered his house, where his wife had cheated on him.
Was Gabbi Able To Find Her Way Out?
Owen comes back to the house to find Gabbi but gets no response from her. He later comes back with the police and struggles to find her. He and a lady officer search inside the house but are unable to find Gabbi. Meanwhile, Gabbi is able to hear them but is unable to call out to them for help. No matter how much she yells from the room, they are unable to hear her. When she sees Owen and the officer leaving, she tries jumping from the terrace but lands in another room. She finds another letter in that room, where Judy had written to Angus about the loss of their baby. She understands that the house has a lot of hidden sorrows and tries to escape. She calls Owen but is unable to reach him and, therefore, leaves him a text before her battery runs out.
She finds a ring and the doll, and just as she is about to throw the doll in the fire, she sees her own doppelganger. The other Gabbi tells her not to burn the doll, as it would lock the curse forever in the house. She tells her that she could unlock the curse with her own blood. Gabbi was unaware that her double was just trying to trick her into believing her and doing as she said. She slits her hand, not realizing that she is increasing the strength of the curse manifold.
Meanwhile, when Owen sees her text, he returns to find Gabbi and her doppelganger fighting. When the officer tries to intervene, she is hit hard in the head and loses her life. Later, when Owen sees that the doppelganger is trying to attack Gabbi and attempting to shoot her from the back, he hits her head with a vase and escapes the house with Gabbi. It is later that we realize that Owen had mistaken the doppelganger for Gabbi and chosen to save her while the real Gabbi was still trapped inside the house. Gabbi later shoots herself out of desperation. The house is seen to remove all traces of Gabbi’s existence in the house, preparing a spot for its next victim!
Final Words
Much like a Venus fly-trap plant, the house had been trapping women inside it and never letting them out until it had sucked the life force out of them! The film Woman in the Maze has a unique plot, making it one of a kind in the horror genre list. The extent to which infidelity can affect someone’s life has been brought out in this film. Angus had acted erratic after finding out that his wife had cheated on him and hence tried confining her forever inside the house. The way the mistake of one woman caused the others to suffer has been depicted! However, the 1-hour, 40-minute film was a complete entertainer!
