The Unhealer (2020)

Plot synopsis of Unhealer (2020)

The movie begins with a frail and drunk old man named Fluger unearthing someone’s religiously marked grave. He eventually pulls out the person’s skull, which releases a white smoke and physically throws him back. The scene then cuts to a teenage boy named Kelly shopping at a local convenience store. There, he encounters his childhood friend and crush, Dominique. Kelly makes small talk with her before heading out.

Outside the door, Kelly is cornered by his longtime bullies, Nelson, Reed, and Brad. They pick on Kelly for eating paper and Styrofoam. Seeing Kelly being troubled by the boys, Dom comes to his rescue and warns them to back off. This upsets the boys, and they shove Kelly’s face into the trash bin. The commotion attracts the attention of the store owner, and she fends the bullies off. However, they circulate the video on the internet and humiliate Kelly even more.

In the next scene, an Indigenous man named Red Elk notices the unearthed grave and prays over it. Meanwhile, Kelly falls sick from eating pencils and erasers, and Kelly’s doctor advises his mother, Bernice, to see a psychologist to treat his eating disorder.

Later, Fluger is seen in town claiming to heal people’s ailments. He proves himself by healing a frail old woman’s joint pains. Amazed, Bernice approaches him and invites him over to her home to heal her son. When she leaves to get her car, Red Elk approaches the man and offers to help him get rid of his healing powers. When Fluger declines the offer, Red Elk punches him. However, Red Elk miraculously ends up punching himself.

It turns out the medicine that Fluger stole from the Indigenous grave protects its host, and as a result, whoever tries to harm Fluger ends up hurting himself. Red Elk warns him that abusing the medicine’s power will be the death of him, but the latter brushes aside his warnings and leaves for Kelly’s home.

When Fluger touches Kelly’s body, he feels a strong current and backs off, shocked. Fluger asks for a moment and excuses himself to the bathroom. There, he takes a sip of alcohol and snorts some cocaine before giving Kelly another try. The second trial also goes south—Fluger ends up burning Kelly’s chest with his cigarette before he screams in pain and collapses on the ground, eventually passing away.

As soon as Fluger drops dead, Kelly feels better and gets up. Later, the police take the faith healer’s body away, and Officer Adler gives Bernice his number in case something comes up. Kelly notices that the cigarette burn on his chest has somehow healed. He’s also undergone some physical transformation.

Later, Kelly is picked on by Reed, but the boy ends up hurting himself. It turns out Fluger’s powers have been transferred to Kelly. Things finally seem to be going well for him, and he even gets a job at a pizza restaurant.

That evening, Reed and Nelson’s dad, Whitcom, shows up at Kelly’s door to complain that Kelly beat up his son. Whitcom comments that he finds it odd that Kelly managed to beat up Reed when it used to be the other way around some time ago. The comment upsets Bernice, and she gets on Whitcom’s case.

After Whitcom leaves, Kelly comes clean to his mother about his newfound powers. Bernice is shocked and amazed at the same time. She worries for him and asks him to promise not to attract unnecessary attention to himself.

At school, some bullies try to pick on Kelly but fail. In class, Dom inadvertently drops her hair tie on Kelly’s desk, and he eats its tag before returning it to her. Soon, Kelly starts to have ungodly thoughts about her, and Dom herself begins to feel its effect. Kelly imagines Dom’s friend Sarah joining them for a threesome. As Kelly’s imagination picks up speed, Dom and Sarah feel the heat. The three climax very publicly, and Kelly runs to the bathroom.

Later, at a school party, Nelson picks up Dom without her consent. This upsets Kelly, and he confronts him about it. Before things can escalate, Whitcom intervenes and separates the boys. Later, Brad and his buddies encounter Kelly on his bike on their way back home. They try to swerve him off the road with their car, but Kelly doesn’t even flinch. Enraged, the bullies chase him. Brad ends up losing control and runs Kelly over. The car smashes into Kelly’s head, but when the smoke clears, it is revealed that Brad’s skull has been crushed and he has passed away.

Everyone soon arrives, and Kelly tells Dom about the whole ordeal, including his magical power, while Nelson and the boys lie to the police that Kelly was riding his bike in the middle of the road and Brad swerved off to protect him. However, after a preliminary investigation, the police let Kelly off the hook.

Red Elk learns about Fluger’s death and visits his grave. After examining the soil, he deduces that Fluger lost his power before he died. After hearing about Kelly being hit by a car and emerging unscathed, Red Elk pays him a visit at his workplace and confronts him about Fluger. Panicking, Kelly comes clean about being treated by him.

Meanwhile, Nelson and his buddies get upset seeing Kelly move on with his life so easily and decide to avenge the death of their mate. They decide to destroy Kelly’s trailer to get back at him. After finding out Kelly and his mother’s schedule, they wait for Bernice to leave for her night shift outside the trailer.

However, that evening, Kelly gets off early from work, while Bernice falls sick and decides to skip work. Seeing his mother weak, Kelly heads to town to buy her some medicine. Nelson and the boys mistake Kelly for Bernice and hook the trailer to their pickup truck with Bernice still sleeping inside. They drag the trailer off its support. After wrecking it, they fail to unhook the chain swiftly, so they throw it into the truck and leave.

Bernice gets trapped inside the trailer, and the stove starts leaking gas in the kitchen. Soon, the gas ignites and the trailer explodes. Later, Kelly returns and rushes into the trailer to rescue his mother. However, he is a little too late—Bernice has burned to death. Kelly is traumatized by the whole ordeal, and Officer Adler convinces the hospital to keep Kelly for one more night so he can find a place for the boy.

In the meantime, Red Elk approaches Adler—who is also from the same Native American tribe—and informs him about Kelly’s power. Red Elk suggests talking to Kelly, but Adler finds it inappropriate to discuss folktales passed down by their great-great-great-grandfathers at such a difficult time in Kelly’s life. Red Elk understands and tells the officer to contact him when he’s ready.

Dom sticks by Kelly at his mother’s funeral, and when Kelly breaks into tears, she comforts him, saying that no one is going to think he’s weak if he cries. Kelly argues that he has to be strong for his mother to be proud of him, but Dom tells him that Bernice was always proud of him.

Kelly reveals his plans to leave town, much to Dom’s dismay. The two then make out and are hit by a strange sensation, but they don’t think much of it. After Dom leaves, Kelly visits Fluger’s grave in the same cemetery. He munches on a wild weed growing on it and instantly starts puking. As he’s doing so, Sarah sees it all go down from a distance.

Afterward, Officer Adler drives Kelly to Social Services and talks to him about the accident. After learning that the trailer fell off its supports before the gas ignited, Kelly becomes sure that it wasn’t an accident.

Meanwhile, Nelson and his friends are not one bit remorseful of their actions. They keep their involvement in the manslaughter a secret and decide to head to the riverbend to decompress after a stressful week. On their way there, they encounter Adler driving Kelly out of town and decide to tease him. Enraged, Kelly rolls out of Adler’s speeding car and secretly follows Nelson and his buddies to the river.

Tucker takes his shirt off and goes for a swim as Nelson and the others playfully pelt stones at him. Seeing them distracted, Kelly grabs Tucker’s shirt and eats a piece of it. He then strangles himself with the shirt, which results in Tucker struggling to breathe and stay afloat. Tucker slowly drowns as Nelson and the others watch in horror. Nelson tries to save him but without success.

Kelly then cockily reveals himself and his involvement in Tucker’s murder. After Reed panics and runs away, Kelly proceeds to grab Nelson’s shirt—but Reed returns with Officer Adler, and Kelly is forced to flee. The boys tell the police about Kelly’s role in killing Brad, but the police find it hard to believe and instead suspect them of killing their friend.

That night, Kelly shows up at Dom’s window. When Dom asks him about the river incident, he comes clean to her about his plan to avenge his mother’s death. However, Dom advises him to get Nelson and the others to confess instead of killing them. Kelly agrees, and the two make out.

The next day, Kelly shows up in chemistry class and deliberately angers Tony to get him to confess to murdering Bernice. Nelson manages to calm Tony down, but when Kelly mocks Tony’s girlfriend, Sarah, he loses it and throws acid on Kelly’s face. Naturally, Tony ends up burning himself as a result. He screams in pain and collapses on the ground before passing away.

Enraged, Sarah kicks Kelly in his junk but ends up hurting herself, while Dom is left in shock. When the teacher arrives with Adler, Kelly again runs away. In the aftermath, the police shut down classes until Kelly is caught.

Later that night, a grieving Sarah shows up at Nelson’s home and plots with him to avenge Tony’s death. She tells him about the vine from the cemetery that made Kelly instantly sick, and the two head to the graveyard to fetch it.

The next day, Adler finally contacts Red Elk, and the two excavate Fluger’s grave. Meanwhile, Whitcom takes his sons to football practice while providing them security. Adler notices the chain with which the bullies dismantled Kelly’s trailer in Whitcom’s pickup truck. Adler questions Nelson and Reed about it, but they deny knowing anything.

Soon, Kelly shows up at the practice with an electric drill after eating a piece of Nelson’s clothes. However, Nelson is prepared and pulls out a cylinder full of weed juice from the cemetery from his bag. Adler pleads with Kelly to stop, but he drills his knees—and as a result, drills into Nelson’s knee. Nelson screams in pain, but Kelly refuses to stop until Nelson confesses to killing Bernice.

Dom arrives, and Kelly finally stops. Using the opportunity, Nelson sprays Kelly with the weed juice, and the latter collapses on the ground. Whitcom then steals Adler’s gun and shoots Kelly, but ends up shooting Nelson and himself to death.

After the altercation, Dom disapproves of Kelly’s ways and convinces him to give up his powers. Kelly reluctantly agrees, and Adler takes him to the cemetery with Red Elk and Dom. As Red Elk and Adler perform a ritual, Dom kisses Kelly to give him strength. Soon, Kelly starts violently convulsing, and Dom pleads with Red Elk to stop.

The police surround them and order them to freeze. When Kelly tries to run, a police officer shoots him—and as a result, shoots Dom and himself. A fatally wounded Dom kisses Kelly before passing away.

Grief-stricken by Dom’s death, Kelly feasts on Fluger’s rotting corpse to end his power over him. The movie ends as we see Dom come back to life in the back of the ambulance, revealing that she has inherited Kelly’s power.

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Video Recap of Unhealer (2020)