Lot 36 story
In 1991, military veteran Nick, chased by debt collectors buys abandoned storage units. He buys one for $400 after the original owner passed away. Nick had earlier bought house cleaner Emilia's unit after her failure to pay her bill due to a miscommunication with the manager, Eddie. She pleads with Nick to get to get back her things, but he refuses and gives her the unit's original padlock. While searching the unit, Nick mentions to manager Eddie that the unit seems smaller compared to the others. Eddie tells him that the building was built in the 1940s and nothing was up to code. Nick continues to dig through the things in the unit while Emilia lingers outside. He finds a beautiful table set with arcane markings and takes them to an occult shop for an appraisal. The shop owner is entranced with the items saying they are a very old Séance set. She touches the table triggering a hidden mechanism so a drawer pops open with three occult books inside. The shop keep calls in calls Roland, an expert who can give Nick a proper appraisal on the books. Roland immediately identifies the books and asks where the fourth one is. He tells Nick that the books are a set that are designed to summon and make a pact with a demon and that the fourth book burns up at the end of the transaction, thus making it a very rare item. Nick says if there is one more book to be found, it'll be back in the unit. Roland offers Nick money for the table on the spot with a promise of a $300,000 payday if they find the final book. On the drive to the building, Roland tells Nick that the owner of the unit was a weapon maker from the World War II era and did horrible things for the Nazis. At the unit, they find a false wall in back. Prying it open, they discover a brick hallway lined with crucifixes and a horrible smell. Roland tells Nick not to do or say anything while they are in there in case it will trigger a demon. After a walk inside, they find the nearly mummified body of the unit owner's sister laying on the ground in a binding circle with demon tentacles where her face should be. Nick, unimpressed, goes for the fourth book on a stand across the room. Roland warns him not to proceed but Nick, unheeding, stumbles through the circle disrupting it. The demon resurrects, destroying most of the host body that was keeping it trapped, and the book bursts into flames. Roland is consumed by the demon and Nick runs away while the demon, now a mass of writhing tentacles, stalks him through the hallways. Nick runs to the only exit out of the storage building but finds the door is locked from the outside. He sees Emilia and pleads for her to open the door. Emilia gestures that she'll help but then Nick watches in horror as she holds up the padlock he gave her and locks the door. As he turns around to run, he's consumed by the demon. Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Sebastian Roché, Demetrius Grosse, Elpidia Carrillo Directed by: Guillermo Navarro. Story by: Regina Corrado and Guillermo del Toro.
19 total · 10 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| Christianity | major | The story featured demonology in the Christian tradition. |
| coping with being in debt | major | Nick was struggling to pay off a debt of some sort without getting bonked on the head with a hammer again. |
| demon | major | The Nazi former storage unit owner had summoned a demon and bound it in the body of his own benighted sister. |
| demonic possession | major | The late Nazi storage unit owner had summoned a demon and bound it in the body of his own benighted sister. |
| facing financial ruin | major | Nick was down on his luck, in debt, and a hair away from total financial ruin. |
| human vs. monster | major | The story concluded with Nick be chased down the corridors, and then consumed, by a betentacled demon straight out of hell. |
| monster | major | The story concluded with Nick be chased down the corridors, and then consumed, by a betentacled demon straight out of hell. |
| poetic justice | major | Nick had taken no pity on Emilia, and indeed taunted her in her misfortune. When he was desperately fleeing a betentacled demon in the end, she repaid the favor in almost exactly the same way and using the very same prop: the broken padlock from her old unit. |
| racism in society | major | There was pointed racism in the dialogue. Nick and Eddie explicitly discussed racial tensions between whites and blacks. Nick admonished the Latin American cleaning lady Emilia for insulting him in her native tongue, instead of in English. Nick made slurs against Latinos and told Emilia that she should at least make an effort to insult him in English if she had to come to his country. This was perhaps the sin for which he died in the end. |
| the role of war veterans in society | major | Nick and Eddie were both veterans form the Vietnam war. We saw how their fortunes were and heard that, at least in Nick's case, he derived them from what had happened to him during the war. |