Summary

• Sam's obsession with conspiracy theories leads him on a dangerous quest for the truth about a mysterious disappearance in LA.
• Unraveling a web of cults, conspiracies, and symbols, Sam's hunch about a sinister underground cabal is proven correct.
• Despite his revelations, Sam's unhealthy fixation on uncovering secrets leaves him unchanged and unfulfilled in the end.

To have Under the Silver Lake explained, is to explore a surreal, frightening, and ultimately pointless journey for Sam. Under the Silver Lake, It Follows director David Robert Mitchell's 2019 film that seems destined to become a cult movie, depicts the unusual and mysterious events that happen to a 33-year-old man in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Cults, conspiracies, and subliminal messages come together to form a deepening plot that suggests a conspiracy theorist's "out there" suspicions are more real than he could have imagined.

Andrew Garfield stars in Under the Silver Lake as Sam, an unambitious, possibly self-loathing, jobless man fascinated by conspiracy theories and hidden messages in everyday life. Sarah (Riley Keough) is Sam's new neighbor and, despite his general disinterest in people, the pair grow close and share a kiss. However, the next morning, Sarah and her friends have disappeared, setting Sam off on a perilous and confusing journey to find out what really happened to her after her presumed body is found burned in a car wreck. As he explores the underworld of LA, Sam's previously unbelievable assumptions are proven correct.

Sam Is A Slacker Conspiracy Theorist Who Turns Out To Be Right

Sam Has Been Waiting His Whole Life To Be A Part Of A Conspiracy

Sam is shown to be aimless, unwilling to take care of himself, and obsessed with symbols and the idea that there is a secret cabal of some sort working just under the noses of regular people. When Sarah disappears and presumably turns up dead, Sam's investigation leads him to a man named the Comic Fan (Patrick Fischler), the creator of a comic known as Under the Silver Lake. The Comic Fan tells Sam that everything is connected: Sarah's disappearance, a spree of dog killings, and the reemergence of a homicidal woman wearing an owl mask are all related.

While at first, it seems like Sam has simply found a like-minded conspiracy theorist to go down the rabbit hole with, it turns out his convictions are proven to be true. Sam is given access to a concert at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where he meets the band "Jesus and the Brides of Dracula", whom he believes may have hidden messages laced in their lyrics. As Sam journeys through LA, he meets strange people, all of whom seem to know something about Sarah and her friends' disappearance.

What Under the Silver Lake slowly reveals is that Sam has been right all along. There is a secret underground cabal. After Sam finds out the Comic Fan has been killed by the owl woman, known as the Owl's Kiss, he makes his way to another LA party where he once again runs into the lead singer of the band. Sam beats the singer until he admits that Sam's been correct this whole time — their lyrics are subliminal messages and have been assigned to the band by someone only known as the Songwriter (Jeremy Bobb).

Sam tracks down the Songwriter, an elderly man who claims to be behind most songs that have ever been written. He even references "Beethoven's Symphony No. 9", a song from the early 1800s, as the result of his machinations. When Sam demands to know why the Songwriter is doing this, their confrontation escalates into violence and Sam kills the ancient man with an electric guitar. His discovery of this century-spanning conspiracy is a surprise but, as so often happens in Under the Silver Lake, it does not really tell Sam anything.

Under the Silver Lake is rated R for language, graphic nudity, some drug use, sexual content, and violence.

Millicent Dies In The Silver Lake

One Of Sam's Only Allies Is Shot After Giving Him A Clue

Millicent, played by Callie Hernandez, is the daughter of late billionaire Jefferson Sevence (Chris Gann), whose death is the subject of one of Sam's original conspiracy theories. Originally too upset about her father's death to accept Sam's theories, Millicent returns towards the end of the movie, wanting Sam's help to uncover what really happened to her father and Sarah, disappearances that may be related. At the Silver Lake Reservoir, Millicent gives Sam an unusual charm bracelet with chess directions on it.

Before she can explain, they are shot at by unknown assailants and Millicent is killed. Barely escaping, Sam returns home. There, he realizes the bracelet is a set of chess moves. Using that key piece of information, along with a Nintendo Power magazine and a cryptic cereal box, Sam manages to find out the location of the shadowy entity behind all the conspiracies he has uncovered.

It's here in Under the Silver Lake that the absurdity of Sam's search makes itself clear. Everything is laid out perfectly for him to find, and he manages to connect dots that have very little to do with one another. That's part of the point of Under the Silver Lake — Sam is making these connections himself. There is something strange going on with Sarah, but it's Sam who turns his search for her into a puzzle-box mystery when perhaps he could have solved everything much earlier.

Under the Silver Lake is a straightforward film, but David Robert Mitchell places these clues like a bracelet with the exact coordinates of a secret base so that audiences can understand Sam, seeing clues and conspiracy everywhere he looks.

Sarah Was Never Murdered

Sam's Hunch Was Right And Sarah Faked Her Death

The driving force behind Sam leaving his home to pursue a conspiracy is the disappearance of Sarah, a girl he's only briefly known but has become infatuated with. When she and her roommates suddenly vanish, he immediately makes it his mission to find her. While there may be something fairytale-like about Sam risking everything to find the girl of his dreams, the reality is more unsavory. Sarah never asks for Sam's help and leaves him the night they meet in a way that does not imply she's interested in seeing him again.

But Sam, as a conspiracy theorist whose delusions of grandeur put him at the center of the story, thinks that it must be up to him to save "his" woman. He has a hero complex, and his ideas about conspiracies and hidden messages all have an implied caveat that he is the only one capable of solving them.

So, when he sees on the news that Sarah and her roommates have died in a car fire, he refuses to believe it and sets out on his quest. As it turns out, using the coordinates from his charm bracelet, Sam discovers that Sarah is not dead.

In the off-grid location, Sam learns that Sarah belongs to a cult that believes if a wealthy man locks himself with three young wives in a tomb, their souls will ascend to a higher plane of existence. Sarah is Jefferson's wife in this scenario and is fully convinced that the cult is right, and willingly walks into the tomb as Sam sadly says goodbye.

Of course, nothing in Under the Silver Lake has led anyone to believe that this cult is correct in their assumptions. Sarah has, in part, been convinced by the subliminal messages in the songs she's heard, just as Sam discovered. While Sam has been right all along about the conspiracy, he's been wrong about what uncovering it would mean. He's assumed that Sarah wants to be rescued when, in reality, the cult is what she wants. As she tells Sam, "You hardly know me."

The Hobo Code Symbols & The Homeless King's Identity Explained

Sam Meets The Security For The Cult

In the beginning of Under the Silver Lake, Sam discovers a strange symbol, a "hobo code", in Sarah's abandoned apartment. He does not receive an explanation until after the events with Sarah and the cult. Sam is drugged by one of the cult leaders and when he wakes up, he's chained to a chair in an abandoned room with a man known as the Homeless King (David Yow) standing over him. Whether his title is literal and he is an unhoused person of note in Los Angeles, or whether it is simply another red herring, is unclear.

What is clear is that the Homeless King is something of the security for the cult. Sam manages to talk his way out of being harmed by the Homeless King and makes his way back to his own home. Housing insecurity is one of the unnerving themes that runs in the background of Under the Silver Lake. Sam is unable to pay rent and, at the end of the movie, he sees his landlord coming to evict him. The Homeless King is a literal interpretation of this fear. He also tells Sam the meaning of the symbol: "stay quiet".

Who Is The Bird Woman (& Why Does Sam Sleep With Her)?

Sam's Mysterious Neighbor Reappears At The End Of The Film

Sam has been mesmerized by one of his neighbors since the beginning of Under the Silver Lake, a woman, called Bird Woman (Wendy Vanden Heuvel) who walks around topless and has a parrot that screeches unintelligible phrases. After he's released by the Homeless King, Sam goes back home and immediately has sex with his neighbor. There's a pent-up frustration within Sam. Yes, he'd gotten to the bottom of the conspiracy, but it didn't mean anything.

What he really wanted was a relationship with Sarah, so when he comes home, he quickly has a liaison with another woman. This is what he's essentially been after this whole time, despite his high and mighty motives about freeing a brainwashed woman from a cult and exposing a dangerous conspiracy.

The Real Meaning Of Under The Silver Lake's Ending

Sam Has An Unhealthy Relationship With Conspiracy

Sam is an unkempt, unambitious slacker, who wants, almost needs, to uncover a conspiracy. Unwilling to make something of his life, he attempts to find hidden meanings that only he can see. It's just happenstance that he manages to stumble upon a real conspiracy; however, it has nothing to do with him, and he gains nothing from figuring it out. Sam's life has been devoted to a ridiculous pursuit, and while it turns out to be correct, is still as useless as if it had turned out to be wrong.

Many times throughout Under the Silver Lake, Sam is told that what he is pursuing is not worthwhile, that he's looking for something that is not there. Thanks to the clues and red herrings dropped throughout the movie, the audience is also convinced of the deeper meaning of everything, just like Sam is. What's surprising is that the web of conspiracy turns out to be true; it's the story of the conspiracy that is ultimately false, much to Sam's frustration.

Sarah never needed his help, Sam was not integral to solving the plot, and nothing has changed with him finding it out in Under the Silver Lake. The only glimmer of hope for Sam, and an unsettling ending for the audience, is that the same hobo symbol from the beginning of the film is painted on Sam's wall at the end. The Homeless King wants Sam to "stay quiet", and Sam's smile at the end indicates he still believes he's important to this greater conspiracy. He hasn't learned anything from his adventure and will likely go down another rabbit hole.

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