Synopsis of Tales of the Unusual: "Snow Mountain" *Note: This ending is open to interpretation.
A plane crash occurs one day, plunging down onto a snowy mountain. The survivors are Misa (Akiko Yada), her friend Mari (Asami Nakamura), a photographer named Yuki (Kazuma Suzuki), a doctor named Manabe (Akira Takarada), and a middle-aged man named Yamauchi (Ren Osugi). Mari injures her leg in the crash. The others try their best to carry her to a mountain cabin, but exhaustion sets in, and with no other choice, they end up leaving her buried in the snow.
The remaining four finally find a mountain cabin and rejoice, but Misa insists they must save her friend and heads back out with Yuki. However, Yuki accidentally kills Mari by stabbing her in the neck with a shovel. Terrified, the two of them run back to the cabin.
Waiting for rescue in the cabin, the four of them begin sharing the food they each had with them. There is also some food inside the cabin, and even a complete set of blankets. Before long, the cold makes them all drowsy, but if everyone falls asleep at once, they will freeze to death. They set a rule: one person stays on guard while the other three sleep. The person on guard wakes up the next person, hands over watch duty, and goes to sleep in that exact spot.
Yamauchi wakes Yuki, Yuki wakes Manabe, Manabe wakes Misa... the role of waking the next person passes in order. After a while, an alarm clock suddenly rings, and Yamauchi wakes up. For some reason, everyone is asleep in their respective sleeping spots. "Who on earth woke me up?" Every time the turn comes around, no one knows who woke the person who was on guard first. After this happens a few times, Misa realizes something. Yamauchi wakes Yuki, Yuki wakes Manabe, Manabe wakes Misa—so far, so good. But after this, even when Misa goes to wake Yamauchi, Yamauchi isn't in his original spot because he has already moved to the next spot to wake Yuki. And yet, Misa must have somehow woken someone and traded places at Yamauchi's spot... Misa screams involuntarily. "There's someone else with us!" Convinced that Mari has come back to life for revenge and is here to kill them, Misa panics. Then, a mysterious shadow flashes right before her eyes. Soon after, Manabe is killed by someone in the dark, and even Yamauchi dies. Only Misa and Yuki are left. "We have to record ourselves on video! This is proof that we lived!" Saying this, they set up the video camera in front of them and drift off to sleep.
Misa suddenly wakes up. Looking at Yuki, who should have been sleeping right beside her, she sees an axe protruding from his back. Half-crazed and trembling, Misa watches the video to find out who killed Yuki. What appears on screen is a woman in white—wearing Mari's clothes.
(It really was Mari...) In the footage, the woman brings the axe down on Yuki. Then, the camera pans up to show the woman's face. It wasn't Mari... It was Misa. (What does this mean? Could it be... I killed him?) Misa screams.
Misa is brought back to her senses by the voices of a rescue team. The mountain cabin she thought she was in has vanished entirely, and only dead bodies are scattered all around her. The rescue team asks Misa, who is in a daze, "What is your name?" "My... My name is...?" Misa is wearing Mari's clothes. Or could it be... (Am I Mari?) The friend who died buried in the snow was wearing Misa's ski jacket.
Comments (-)