The Gift Movie’s Alternate Ending Was Less Horrible

Here’s how the alternate ending to The Gift made the big twist slightly less unpleasant. Following the success of the original Paranormal Activity, Blumhouse has come to dominate the horror and thriller genre in the last decade. While they’ve produced plenty of films outside the genre, they’re most associated with the likes of The Purge or Insidious. They also scored a major blockbuster with Halloween 2018.

Their low-budget production model tends to attract talent as it gives a much greater degree of creative control, and it all but guarantees a return on investment. In 2015 Joel Edgerton wrote and made his directorial debut with The Gift, a psychological thriller where he plays Gordo, who takes an unhealthy shine to an old classmate and his wife. The Gift cast Jason Bateman as Gordo’s classmate while Rebecca Hall plays his wife Robyn. The latter takes something of a shine to Gordo despite his innate oddness, and by investigating his and Simon’s shared past she discovers what kind of man her husband is.

The movie was one of the best-received thrillers of 2015 and The Gift Rotten Tomatoes score from critics stands at a very healthy 91%. The Gift reviews praised the performances and Edgerton’s slow-burn direction, though one issue many cited was its unpleasant twist. The movie gave Jason Bateman a chance to subvert his comic straight man persona, with the story slowly revealing Simon to be a gaslighting bully. It’s revealed he spread a rumor about Gordo being molested when they were in school that led to him being relentlessly bullied. When Gordo’s father heard the story he beat him and even attempted to kill him, leading to Gordo being sent to military school.

Later in The Gift, Simon is fired for attempting to sabotage a colleague’s promotion and Robyn – who is pregnant at this point in the story – leaves when she learns who he really is. This leads to the movie’s most controversial revelation, where Simon is sent a video by Gordo revealing nine months prior that he drugged Robyn in their home, took her to their bedroom and while the video cuts away, the implication is that he raped her and the baby might be his. Robyn soon gives birth but has already cut Simon out of her life, and Gordo tells him in a phone conversation he wants Simon to be haunted by never being able to fully know the truth.

While the ending is disturbing by design, some took issue with The Gift’s finale focusing on how the revenge affects Simon and reducing Robyn to a pawn in Gordo’s revenge scheme. Edgerton actually shot a few alternate endings, with CinemaBlend getting a hold of one that removed the ambiguity of the final scene. This ending makes it clear Gordo didn’t assault Robyn when she was unconscious, and the scheme was solely about revenge on Simon. Edgerton didn’t go with this ending as he felt it didn’t have the same impact.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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