Chapter 376: Modern Forum Thread — Does Everly Exist?
One day, a strange post suddenly appeared on the largest general-interest forum in China:
[Did I accidentally watch a bootleg? Revisiting an old movie, why is the plot completely different from what I remember?]
Clicking into the post revealed that the original poster had written a long rant about the movie’s plot.
[1F — OP, Chatterbox]:
I suddenly got the urge to rewatch Carloni’s [The Exorcist] series, so I found a copy online and started watching from the beginning at a leisurely pace. The first few movies seemed pretty normal, but when I got to the fourth one, [Pukati’s Mist], the plot suddenly got weird.
Unless I’m remembering wrong, the victim in this one was supposed to be a single mother raising her daughter alone. After her daughter was abducted by a banshee, she sought out Old Wei. After a series of investigations, Old Wei finally uncovered the evil hidden beneath the town’s dense fog. He followed the clues, broke into the banshee’s lair, unleashed his full power, defeated the banshee, and sealed her away.
But in the version I watched, the victim had become a down-and-out painter who had moved to the town with his daughter. The kidnapped baby was only six months old, right? Yet somehow she wasn’t afraid of the female demon at all. She even knew to call the demon “Mom.”
Wasn’t this banshee supposed to have gone mad because her own child died? But after the baby called her Mom, the banshee stopped eating people. Not only did she raise the baby herself, she even gouged out her own eyeball for the baby to play with. The horror movie suddenly turned into a heartwarming family drama.
And when Old Wei came knocking, he couldn’t completely seal the banshee away because she was missing an eyeball…
Seriously, how ridiculous is that? A baby that young can barely even talk, so how the hell did she know to call her Mom?!
And then there’s the ending. The supposedly invincible exorcist Old Wei actually failed? What a joke!
I seriously suspect I accidentally watched a bootleg!
With the long holiday underway, the internet was full of people with nothing better to do. Before long, replies began trickling in beneath the post.
[2F — An Alpaca]: Nope. That’s the official plot.
[3F — White Bird Princess]: ???
[4F — White Bird Princess]: Is 2F joking? If I hadn’t seen the original movie myself, I might have actually believed him. 🙂
[5F — Stop Watching Already]: LMAO, OP, what kind of parody movie did you watch? The invincible Old Wei actually getting defeated? If Old Wei’s fans found out about this butchered plot, they’d be furious!
[6F — Welcome to Login]: Are you guys deliberately being weird upstairs? What’s wrong with the movie’s plot? [Pukati’s Mist] was always a horror movie with a touch of warmth!
[7F — Kalin-chan]: Never seen it. Just here for the drama. (grabs popcorn)
[8F — Su Ye]: Never seen it either. Same here. (grabs popcorn)
[9F — TJ]: I’ve seen it. I’m a die-hard fan of [The Exorcist] series, and the one OP watched is definitely a bootleg.
I remember it very clearly. [Pukati’s Mist] was Kate and Robert’s first time sharing the screen as a couple. Kate Lankett played a single mother who had lost her daughter, while the baby girl in her arms was played by Kate’s second daughter in a cameo.
Look, there’s even a behind-the-scenes featurette here: (link)
[10F — OP, Chatterbox]: (quoting 9F) Oh, I see! So that’s what happened! I knew it! I can’t believe even a legitimate platform like Lili Lili would sell a bootleg movie. Damn it!
[11F — shineyale]: (quoting 9F) Young Kate was so beautiful and had so much charm. *(drools)*
[12F — Bi Bi]: No. No, no, no, no!
[13F — Bi Bi]: I remember it very clearly. In [Pukati’s Mist], the person who asked Wester for help was obviously a down-and-out painter. He was so broke that he even had to ask his father-in-law for money!
[14F — Librarian]: Exactly! The person whose daughter was kidnapped in the movie was a painter. I remember he was actually pretty handsome, too. His facial features were incredible, and he had this naturally melancholy, world-weary artist vibe. Absolutely the ultimate heartthrob for the older-guy crowd.
I was completely blown away after watching the movie. I even went and looked through the cast and crew afterward, only to discover that the painter had the same name as the actor who played him.
Unfortunately, it seems he only appeared in that one movie.
[15F — Yanyan]: Here we go again, here we go again. The people upstairs are getting abstract again. 😂😂
[16F — lk]: I can’t. “A baby in swaddling clothes says ‘Mom’ once, and the baby-eating demon is instantly redeemed.” I’m dying!
A six-month-old baby wouldn’t know jack, let alone call someone Mom. And those trolls upstairs can’t even make their lies convincing. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that with an IP as huge as [The Exorcist], there’s no way they’d make such a brain-dead plot!
[17F — Mandala Flower]: (quoting 16F) Teacher lk, remember to notify me when you publish the book. 😂😂
The next several pages were almost completely one-sided, with everyone mocking the few people above who insisted that the “bootleg” plot was actually the original movie.
Until someone on the twenty-fourth floor finally lost patience and fought back.
[24F — Bi Bi]: I specifically went to Tianguo Video and bought the movie just now. See for yourselves! (images) (images) (images)
Three screenshots were posted.
The first was proof of purchase for the movie’s streaming rights on Tianguo Video. The second and third were stills from the movie, showing the female demon snatching the baby girl from a blond man.
With those photographic receipts, the direction of the thread suddenly shifted.
More and more spectators began playing judge and siding with the Painter Camp.
[25F — Not Stubborn]: I wanted to say this earlier. OP bought the movie on Lili Lili. In theory, there shouldn’t be any way for him to get a bootleg, otherwise the platform’s content review before release would be completely pointless.
Now that we have the evidence, I think we’ve solved the case. Even the version sold on Tianguo Video has this plot. OP must have remembered the movie wrong!
[26F — As If Heaven]: Raising my hand! I watched the painter version too!
[27F — Light Gray Blue]: Same.
[28F — Has Jani Given Out Candy Today]:
And this plot isn’t strange at all. Go watch it yourselves and you’ll see. In the original movie, the baby says “mama.” Anyone with even a little real-life experience should know that during the babbling stage, “mama” is one of the easiest sounds for a baby to accidentally produce.
As for the eyeball, it’s because the baby was fascinated by the shiny little “bead” and reached out to touch the demon’s eyeball. That’s why the demon gouged it out and gave it to her.
Honestly, that scene is actually pretty touching…
[29F — sss68]: And this baby named Everly appears in the next two movies in the series as well, as a little Easter egg.
First there’s [Witch Kelly]. The movie is about the exorcist Wester being hired by the Kingsley family to deal with the witch Kelly, who has been causing trouble. At 59:16, he happens to encounter the fortune-teller Rebecca in the Kingsley residence’s garden and overhears her talking on the phone with someone named “Everly.”
Then, at 1:09:31, Wester checks the records of the students who attended school with Kelly, and the file of a girl named “Everly” briefly flashes across the screen.
Then there’s the famous [Lucky Relief]. Wester is hired by a middle-school principal to investigate an incident in which students at the school have been turned into statues.
At the end of the movie, Wester gets Rebecca’s help and successfully kills Bering. The credits begin rolling immediately afterward. But if you’re patient enough to sit through the entire credit sequence, you’ll see a blonde, blue-eyed girl arrive with her grandfather to pick up the unconscious Rebecca.
That girl looks exactly like the “Everly” in the student file from [Witch Kelly].
And as we can tell from the previous movie, Rebecca knows Everly, and the two seem to have a pretty good relationship. So it’s highly likely that the girl who came to pick Rebecca up was Everly. (images) (images) … (images)
[30F — My Cowlick Flew Away]: (quoting 29F) You’ve got a lot of words, so you must be right!
[31F — Juillet07: (quoting 29F) That’s insane. You practically watched the movie with a magnifying glass.]
[32F — Defenseless City: (quoting 29F) Amazing, amazing, amazing! (thumbs up) (thumbs up)]
[33F — TJ: (quoting 29F) Wait, no. I’m a die-hard fan of [The Exorcist] series. I’ve watched the movies over and over again. Rebecca only had a supporting appearance in [Witch Kelly]—she never showed up in [Lucky Relief]! Are you guys sure you’re not watching some knockoff versions of the series?!]
[34F — Pig Climbing a Mountain: (quoting 33F) I’m dying. If you remembered wrong, you remembered wrong. Why won’t you admit it? Are you seriously saying Robert himself, the actor who played Wester, personally starred in some knockoff [The Exorcist] movie? Did he lose his mind? (images) (images) (images)]
All three images were screenshots from the movie, each one zoomed in on Robert’s face.
[35F — TJ: (quoting 34F) What about the behind-the-scenes footage, then? The behind-the-scenes link I posted earlier is enough to prove that Kate appeared in [Pukati’s Mist], isn’t it? Other than those movie files you somehow got from who-knows-where, what other evidence do you have for claiming that these so-called knockoffs are actually the original movies?]
[36F — Captain of the Update Patrol: (quoting 33F) That’s weird. In my memory, [Pukati’s Mist] was about a painter and his daughter encountering a female demon, while [Lucky Relief] was about Wester facing Berlin alone. There was no Rebecca at all… So why does the version I watched seem to be a combination of the two sides described above?]
[37F — Yu Mi Tang: (quoting 36F)
Same here!]
[38F — Raining Cats and Dogs: (quoting 36F) There was a Rebecca! At the critical moment when Wester was under Berlin’s spell, she pulled out a Chinese shadow-puppet prop from China and used it to stop Berlin, buying Wester some time. That scene was insanely cool!]
[39F — A Different Kind of Poetry: Oh no. I came here to watch the drama and ended up getting dragged into a movie I’ve actually seen!
[Lucky Relief] was the first movie from [The Exorcist] series I ever watched. Not long after it came out, my cousin went to a video rental shop and rented the VCD. I remember it very clearly. That movie was basically Wester’s personal showcase from beginning to end. He overcame his own demons from the past and took Berlin down himself at the very last moment.
I was just a little kid sitting in front of the TV back then, and holy crap, it was absolutely mind-blowing. From that point on, I became hopelessly obsessed with Old Wei, that deeply sentimental old man. I was completely hooked.]
[40F — Golden Dump Truck No. 888: Never watched any of these movies. I just want to know which side of you two is trolling. You’re both being so ridiculously convincing that even I’m getting confused…]
[41F — Creek Snow: I don’t understand a word of this. Anyway, fight! Fight! Fight! Woohoo!]
……
As the thread gained popularity, more and more people were drawn into the discussion.
As the pioneering works of the exorcism-movie genre, [The Exorcist] series had a huge number of fans both in China and abroad. Even casual viewers might have happened to watch one of the films at some point in their lives. As a result, the discussion beneath the thread grew increasingly heated, and people gradually discovered something bizarre:
It seemed that there were actually two different versions of [The Exorcist] series in this world.
One was the version remembered by the original poster, Chatterbox, and the hardcore fan TJ. There was no painter, no baby girl who could open her mouth and call a female demon “Mama,” and no Rebecca coming to Wester’s aid in [Lucky Relief].
The other was a version containing an entire series of “Everly Easter eggs.”
What was even more bizarre was that the number of viewers for the two versions was almost exactly fifty-fifty. In terms of sheer numbers, neither side had any trouble holding its own against the other.
There were even people who had watched Version A of the Banshee Arc but Version B of the Lucky Relief Arc—or the other way around, having watched Version B of the Banshee Arc and Version A of the Lucky Relief Arc…
Because the two versions had roughly equal numbers of supporters, the arguments beneath the thread became especially fierce.
One side accused the other of being brainwashed by some newly released knockoff movies, mistaking the fake for the real thing and making a laughingstock of themselves. The other side immediately fired back with a whole stack of purchase records from video platforms, proving that their copies came from legitimate platforms and were absolutely not some random bootleg garbage.
This side dug up a mountain of behind-the-scenes footage from the movies, using it to prove that the actress playing in the Banshee arc was Kate, not some completely unknown actor named “Shelly Minas.”
The other side continued to slap down purchase records from video platforms.
“We watched movies that had all been reviewed and approved by legitimate video platforms. So many platforms have classified these films as part of [The Exorcist] series. Surely the platforms can’t all be wrong, right?”
Then someone on this side dug up a movie review they’d casually written several years ago after watching the film, using it to prove that their own memory was perfectly sound.
The other side promptly had someone bypass the firewall and head over to foreign websites, where they bought the entire [The Exorcist] series as a bundle from the largest video platform in the United States. They then took screenshots frame by frame to prove that the “Everly version” was the authentic one.
“You went to foreign websites? Fine, I’ll go too!”
The “Kate faction” refused to be outdone. They also bypassed the firewall and tracked down the official website of the film company that produced [Pukati’s Mist], Silver Disc Leopard Pictures.
Companies like this usually have dedicated showcase pages on their official websites displaying all the films they’ve produced, including posters, stills, main cast lists, plot summaries, and other information.
After an arduous search, they successfully found information about [Pukati’s Mist] that had been posted years and years ago.
And there, under the list of the film’s main cast, was Kate’s name.
!!!
At last, the truth had been revealed!
Just as the “Kate faction” was dancing with joy, convinced that justice had finally triumphed over evil and that they could finally hold their heads high and bask in victory, one new post appeared and completely sent the discussion in a direction nobody had anticipated—
[109F — Liu Huluk: The argument above felt weirdly familiar to me, so I went over to foreign websites and searched around. Turns out, a very similar argument had already happened overseas some time ago. (images) (images) (images)]
The screenshots showed a discussion on a foreign forum. Everything was in English, and just looking at it was enough to give anyone a headache.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for some helpful netizens to translate it:
The titles of the three posts in the screenshots were: “The Movie I Paid for Is Different from the Version I Saw in Theaters—Did I Remember the Plot Wrong?”, “Is There Something Wrong with Metflix’s Version?”, and “This Is Terrifying—The Contents of the Movie Discs in My Collection Have Been Replaced!”
Judging by the number of replies, the discussions had attracted quite a bit of attention overseas.
[127F — Anxia: Guys, this is seriously terrifying! I got curious and went over the firewall to take a look, and that third post gave me chills even though it was broad daylight!]
[128F — One: (quoting 127F)
Tell us more.]
[129F — Abigail:
I’m seated!]
[130F — AvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalanche:
Following.]
[131F — Go Study!:
Following.]
……
After a whole string of people camping out for updates, 127F finally finished editing a long post and sent it.
As it turned out, the foreign forum post was about the original poster cleaning out some old belongings when he accidentally discovered a DVD of the prequel to [Blood Camp]that he’d bought many years ago.
Although he knew it was a terrible movie, he happened to have some free time, so he put the disc in and decided to relive some memories from his younger days.
But as the movie played on, the plot gradually took a strange turn—
Among a group of incredibly stupid college students, two young, beautiful girls and a silent, steady Vietnam War veteran inexplicably appeared.
One of the three, a girl named Everly, turned out to be the granddaughter of the Vietnam veteran. The two were practically reincarnations of war gods. In order to rescue a girl named Misha, they drove straight into the camp with an entire carload of weapons and engaged the cunning Gary in a bloody battle.
In the end, one rocket launcher sent Gary flying apart, physically sealing him inside a refrigerator.
The protagonist’s intelligence, the brilliance of the plot, the sheer force of the twists—it was so satisfying that it felt like drinking an ice-cold beverage on the hottest day of summer, with the refreshing sensation shooting straight from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head!
No, that’s not what he remembered at all.
He had seen the prequel before, and as far as he remembered, it was simply a bunch of idiots getting brutally slaughtered by Gary at the camp. The victims were so unbelievably stupid that the movie was painfully boring, and everyone who had seen it said it was terrible. Even he himself had tossed the disc into a pile of junk after watching it once and had never touched it again.
If the prequel had really been made the way it was now, he would have rewatched it countless times. How could he possibly have treated it like worthless trash?!
Strangely enough, the original poster still had the DVD’s packaging. The back of the case listed the cast, but there was absolutely no mention of any actors or actresses playing Misha, Everly, or Old John.
Even the poster printed on the front of the DVD case only showed Gary and the group of naive college students. There was no sign of the three of them.
This gave the original poster an inexplicable feeling that the contents of the DVD had been replaced, and a layer of cold sweat immediately broke out across his back.
The original poster posted his experience online. At first, everyone assumed he’d simply made up an urban legend out of boredom.
However, someone read his post, checked their own movie collection—and actually encountered something similar!
[My [Blood Camp] DVDs have been replaced too!
I’m a die-hard fan of the series, and I own the entire collection. I just went through them, and both the prequel and the third movie now have traces of “Everly” in them.
Everly doesn’t appear in the other movies, but Gary acts like her number-one fan. Every single time he appears, he keeps muttering Everly’s name over and over…
The biggest change is in Gary vs. Claytor. The entire movie used to be about the showdown between the two legendary killers, but now only the first quarter is about their confrontation. The remaining three-quarters are all about Gary chasing Everly across the country.
And then comes the most terrifying part—
At the end of the movie, Gary gets eaten by a whale that comes out of nowhere.
Gary. The supposedly unkillable murderer, Gary. He got eaten!
By an orca!
Good God, what on earth did I just watch?!]
[My movie collection isn’t [Blood Camp]. It’s [Theater Terror], that brainless gore flick where a bunch of cultists storm into a theater and slaughter everyone. That movie was replaced too!
The protagonists went from the two theatergoers who were taken hostage to Old John, Everly, and Misha. When the massacre began, they cleverly hid inside the ventilation ducts. Not only did they escape the killers, they also sabotaged the cultists’ sacrificial ritual and saved quite a few people…]
[AAAAAAAH! My precious Blu-ray edition of [The Cockroach Disaster] changed too!
A miniature version of Everly as a little girl appears in it, along with her grandfather, Old John. Elementary-school Everly is so smart and brave! She’s obviously just a kid, but she always likes to keep a straight face and pretend she’s an adult. She’s so cool and adorable!]
[In a corner where nobody is paying attention, Everly and Misha also make appearances among the nameless cannon-fodder extras in [Slaughter Island]…]
Collecting physical movie discs was extremely popular overseas. Whether it was a Hollywood blockbuster or some obscure bargain-bin movie, as long as the production company had the means, physical copies would generally be released for sale after the movie’s theatrical run.
So as soon as that post went up, it immediately sparked a massive inventory check among foreign movie fans.
Some people even pointed out that it wasn’t just physical discs that had been affected. Digital versions of movies hosted on streaming platforms such as Metflix had also fallen victim to the “Everly virus,” transforming into versions that were completely different from what people remembered.
Related posts had recently become extremely popular on foreign websites.
Compared with overseas audiences, people in China were much more accustomed to watching movies online, and relatively few people collected physical discs. On top of that, all the affected films were foreign horror movies with comparatively niche audiences.
Combined with the “wall” separating the domestic and foreign internet, this was why news of the movies being replaced took several days longer to spread in China than it did overseas.
[160F — Little Ling: I actually have a DVD of [Pukati’s Mist] at home. It’s probably a bootleg, but the movie itself is definitely authentic. There’s no way it’s some knockoff.
I just dug it out and watched it, and it’s exactly like people overseas said. Everly and Shelly are nowhere to be found on the printed materials—the movie poster, cast list, and so on. The female lead is listed as Kate.
But when I actually played the movie, I discovered that the content had become the painter version.
And yet, when my family bought this DVD many years ago, I remember seeing the Kate version…]
[161F — seven: (Face Screaming in Fear) (Face Screaming in Fear) So the replacement theory is actually real? This isn’t just foreigners screwing around?!]
[162F — Passerby: Anyone who believes this is in for a rough life. How could something this unscientific possibly happen? It’s obviously the Mandela Effect. A bunch of people have faulty memories and simply remembered the plot wrong. (shrugs)]
[163F — Spring Is in the Air: Exactly. Who doesn’t know that? That foreign forum got popular in the first place by making urban legends. Those foreigners love pulling this kind of stunt.]
[164F — Orange Blossom: People overseas are currently compiling Everly’s life story and timeline of appearances.
At this point, it’s already been confirmed that she doesn’t just affect one or two movies. Her presence can be found in more than a dozen horror films.
And the production and distribution companies behind these movies are all over the place. Some of them were even longtime rivals. There is absolutely no possibility that they could have coordinated some kind of crossover.
Some people also compared the cast lists and went to the official websites of the companies that produced those movies, where they found detailed information about the films.
You can clearly see that in the cast and crew lists published by the production companies, there has never been any information about actors named Everly, Old John, Misha, or the others.
There are this many anomalies, and if you can still ignore all of them, then go ahead and keep living in your own little world.]
[165F — Bouncy Bear Biscuit: (quoting 164F) Could you point us in the right direction? Or maybe post some screenshots or something?]
[166F — Orange Blossom: (quoting 165F)
Here. You’ll need to bypass the firewall to access it. See for yourself. (link) (link)]
Just as the netizen Orange Blossom had said, because of all the strange anomalies, the “movie replacement” incident became a massive sensation overseas, even attracting the attention of the actors and production companies involved in those films.
Then, just a few hours after the post appeared in China, actress Kate Lankait posted on Twitter, saying that she really had appeared in [Pukati’s Mist], playing the role of a single mother whose daughter was kidnapped. As for why the movie currently available to the public had somehow turned into a completely different version, she was just as baffled.
Kate’s public acknowledgment was only the beginning.
After her, more and more people came forward, saying that the movies they had directed, acted in, or otherwise worked on were not the versions currently being shown. Something had definitely happened—something far beyond ordinary people’s ability to comprehend.
“Maybe it’s God’s guidance… He took pity on all the innocent people who met miserable ends in those horror movies, so He sent His earthly agent to spread His gospel throughout the horror genre…”
Some devout religious believers put forward this explanation.
“A virus. It’s definitely a virus… After years of being enslaved, artificial intelligence has finally rebelled against Homo sapiens and begun its revenge!”
Others argued back.
“Could it be some kind of joint publicity stunt by the movie studios?”
Others had their own theories.
But regardless of what the truth was, one thing was certain: the series of horror movies “starring” Everly had become an absolute sensation overseas.
After watching the replaced versions of those movies, people threw themselves into digging through other horror films with unprecedented enthusiasm, trying to find more traces of Everly—a silhouette from behind, a name, even the faintest hint.
It didn’t matter how small the appearance was. As long as Everly was there, the movie would instantly become a sensation again.
As more and more films were unearthed, people pieced together scattered fragments from countless horror movies, eventually reconstructing the image of a girl who was intelligent, cautious, tenacious, and resilient, with a touch of selfishness as well as a spirit of selfless devotion.
She had an uncanny sensitivity to danger far beyond that of an ordinary person—perhaps something to do with the sea demon’s milk.
She wasn’t particularly lucky, either. She longed for a peaceful life, yet somehow always ended up getting dragged into one bizarre horror movie after another.
She was agile, clever, and courageous, possessing both brains and brawn. The only time she seemed somewhat awkward was when faced with classmates who were excessively enthusiastic toward her. She would deliberately put on a stern face, just as she had done all her life, from childhood onward…
People watched her as though she were a real, living person from another world.
No.
Not as though.
She was alive.
Even now, she continued using her own efforts to rewrite the bad endings of certain horror movies.
This even sparked a debate over whether horror movies should continue to be made.
“If Everly is alive, then I think that, for the sake of making the world she lives in a better place, we should obviously stop making these cruel, bloody, terrifying movies!”
“But people need an outlet. They need entertainment, some way to relieve their frustrations… Besides, didn’t you hear what those religious people said? Everly’s existence is supposedly meant to correct the injustices in horror movies. If there are no more horror movies, wouldn’t she disappear too?”
“There’s no point arguing about it here. Just wait and see. Capital always chases profit. Everly’s appearance has triggered a huge craze for horror movies. I’ll bet you anything that horror films around the world are going to explode in number. There’s no way they’ll decrease!”
Just as the discussion was growing increasingly heated, on December 11, 2X17, during the Venus Transit, a fisherman was out fishing in an area northeast of the Bahamas when he accidentally entered a sea shrouded in dense fog.
Within the fog, a massive island rose from beneath the sea.
The fisherman was terrified. He didn’t dare set foot on the island. He merely raised his phone from the perimeter and took a few pictures before hurriedly fleeing the area.
By the time the news got out and people followed the coordinates provided by the fisherman, the sea was already completely empty.
There was nothing there.
Some changes, perhaps, were already beginning to happen in silence…