Under the Silver Lake: Difference between revisions

In the summer of 2011, Sam is an aimless 33-year-old in [[Silver Lake, Los Angeles]], interested in [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] and [[hidden message]]s in [[popular culture]], and uninterested in paying his overdue rent. One morning, Sam sees a news report detailing the disappearance of billionaire Jefferson Sevence. While spying on a topless neighbor feeding her birds he notices a mysterious new neighbor, Sarah. Sarah notices him in turn and later gets high with Sam while watching ''[[How to Marry a Millionaire]]''. As they begin to kiss, Sarah's two roommates interrupt and Sarah suggests Sam come back the next day. Fireworks go off nearby as they stand outside Sarah's apartment, and Sam comments that it's a bit late in the summer for them. For a moment Sarah seems transfixed, before giving him a breathless goodbye.

In the morning, Sam discovers that Sarah and her roommates have moved out overnight, and becomes obsessed with learning what happened. He breaks into the empty apartment, finding a strange symbol on the wall, and flees when a woman, Troy, comes by to pick up a box. Sam follows Troy and her two friends to a rooftop party in [[Downtown Los Angeles]] to a rooftop party, where he meets his friend Allen and Emerald. Emerald points out Sevence's daughter, Millicent, who becomes upset and leaves upon learning of her father's death. He also sees a Balloon Girl doing performance art and talks to one of the "brides" from a band called Jesus & the Brides of Dracula. The bride gives Sam a cookie that doubles as a ticket to a private show at [[Hollywood Forever Cemetery]]. On television, Sam discovers that Sevence burned to death in a car with three women. Sarah's hat was found at the scene, and a small dog similar to hers was found dead.

After decoding a hidden message within the lyrics of a song by Jesus & the Brides of Dracula, Sam makes his way to the [[Griffith Observatory]]. There he is met by the Homeless King, a vagrant wearing a robe and crown, who blindfolds him and takes him to a hidden cave before letting him venture alone into a secret space that resembles a bomb shelter.

Sam makes his way back to the Comic Fan’s house to find police investigating the Fan's apparent suicide. Sam views the footage from the Fan's [[Closed-circuit television|CCTV]], and confirms that the Fan was murdered by the Owl's Kiss. Terrified, he leaves the house, taking the cereal box with him. He phones his friend Allen, who takes him to a chess party attended by the band members of Jesus & the Brides of Dracula. Sam follows Jesus to the bathroom and forces him to reveal that three songs on the album are not his but were record label imports, written by someone Jesus knows only as "the Songwriter." Sam has the Balloon Girl and two Shooting Stars (employees of an escort agency) lead him to the Songwriter, a very old man who reveals that he has encoded many songs with secret messages over the decades. He claims that [[Ghostwriter|he wrote most of the music]] that Sam grew up with, including [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Beethoven's Symphony No. 9]], which was composed in the 1820s. When Sam demands to know who paid him to write the songs, the Songwriter tries to kill him, but Sam beats him to death with an electric guitar.

Sam is rescued from a murder attempt by the Owl's Kiss by the arrival of his landlord with a police officer, who gives Sam one last day to pay the rent. Remembering something the Homeless King had said, Sam follows a coyote which leads him to another party, where Samhe encounters Millicent Sevence again. As they swim in the [[Silver Lake Reservoir|Silver Lake]], Millicent gives Sam a bracelet engraved with letters and numbers which she had found in her father's office. While in the water, the two are shot at by persons unknown. Sam survives but Millicent is fatally shot, dying in a pose eerily similar to one on a vintage [[Playboy]] magazine cover that Sam owns.

The next morning, Sam realizes that the codes on the bracelet are chess moves. By overlaying the map from the Comic Fan's cereal box on a pull-out map from [[Nintendo Power|Nintendo Power magazine]] he is able to plot the moves and pinpoint the shadow entity's [[off-the-grid]] location. Making his way there, he finds a man and three women (one of them Troy) in a small hut. As Sam holds them at gunpoint, the man offers him tea and reveals the truth: throughout history, wealthy men such as himself have chosen to seal themselves in underground tombs, like the "bomb shelter" fromSam explored earlier, in order for their souls to "ascend," accompanied by three wives, to an unexplained and unearthly domain. Sarah and her roommates were Sevence's wives, and their deaths were faked. Their tomb has already been sealed, but Sam speaks with Sarah on a video phone. She confirms that she entered the tomb willingly and is at peace with her fate, and she and Sam share a brief farewell. As Sam begins to pass out from the (drugged) tea he sees the Homeless King approaching. When he wakes up the Homeless King has him chained to a chair and interrogates him, but finally lets him go, warning him to reveal nothing of what he has learned.