Eloise (2017) Plot Summary & Timeline

We begin our journey with a haunting portrayal of the real Eloise Asylum, featuring the chilling audio and imagery of the devastating fire that engulfed the building in 1982. The story unfolds with a woman named Pia, who finds herself at an asylum, undergoing an intense interrogation by a detective. The detective reveals to Pia dreadful news: her brother and friend’s bodies have been discovered, but her friend Jacob remains missing. As we delve deeper into the narrative, we learn that Jacob is in the midst of fixing a car when he receives a call from an attorney, informing him of his father’s passing. This prompts him to discover that he is set to inherit $1.2 million, contingent upon the confirmation of an unknown aunt’s death.

Despite struggling with the gravity of his father’s death, Jacob learns that his father, afflicted with terminal cancer, chose to take his own life rather than succumb to the illness. Visiting his father’s house, Jacob stumbles upon a peculiar box filled with mementos, including a drawing of an old Chevy. While rummaging through the box, he is startled by an unexpected intruder—Dell, his friend, who promptly swipes a pocket watch before they head to a bar. There, Pia, acting as the bartender, insists Jacob must buy a round for everyone, as it’s his birthday.

Meanwhile, Dell reveals a pressing need for $20,000, and Jacob agrees to assist him, provided that Dell helps him obtain his aunt’s records. Jacob’s quest leads him to the asylum, where he learns that the records have been moved to an annex building, and that retrieving the information could take months without a court order. Desperate for answers, Jacob bribes a clerk to expedite the process, inadvertently getting himself admitted to the asylum.

An unexpected confrontation occurs when Jacob collides with a shopping cart filled with trash bags, apologizing to a silent homeless man. Driven by their need for information, Jacob and Dell make the bold decision to break into the asylum’s annex building, despite being uncertain about the location of the relevant records. Their search leads them to Scott, a man who possesses the blueprints of the asylum and reveals that he is actually Pia’s brother.

After a tense and dangerous break-in, the trio encounters a police officer, who briefly scans the area before leaving. They finally discover the annex room teeming with countless filing cabinets, yet they find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. As they navigate this labyrinth of records, Scott suddenly vanishes without a trace. An accidental drop of Dell’s pocket watch triggers a stark flashback of the asylum’s dark history, revealing moments of patients being subjected to violence by orderlies.

Pia experiences her own haunting memories while wandering past the maternity ward, where she strays into visions from the past. Utilizing an infrared camera, Scott identifies eerie human shapes lurking in the shadows. Moments of despair follow, with glimpses of patients undergoing traumatic treatments and Scott seeing himself on the walls among the horrors of the asylums’ past. As their situation becomes increasingly perilous, Dell inadvertently injures himself as he tries to retrieve stolen medication. Mistakenly, he pours LSD on his cut, leading him into a hallucinatory spiral that culminates in a terrifying gun encounter where he sees phantoms from his nightmares.

In a harrowing turn of events, Dell finds himself in a locked room filled with lifeless bodies, and as a water line breaks, he is pulled under, drowning in the rising water. Meanwhile, Jacob and Pia are on the frantic search for Scott, hearing ethereal music that leads them into visions of an art class from years gone by. Their path is illuminated by drawings that echo their own childhoods, revealing the brutal conflicts between patients and staff.

As the narrative twists, Jacob is strapped to a gurney, forced to face his overwhelming fear of claustrophobia. Pia’s anguish culminates in her being subjected to repeated injections by nurses. However, an opportunity arises as Pia seizes a moment of clarity, freeing herself and pursuing Jacob through the asylum. Their chase leads them to a pivotal encounter with Gertrude Martin, who is on the verge of giving birth on Jacob’s birthday. This shocking revelation unravels to reveal Gertrude as Jacob’s mother, who whispers to a nurse to ensure her baby is taken care of and kept from the asylum’s clutches.

In a chilling moment, the baby Jacob is placed in the same box that Jacob discovered earlier. The past collides with the present when young Pia is instructed to deliver the infant Jacob, and amid this chaos, the truth of the fire that destroyed the asylum becomes evident. In a desperate bid to erase the horrors of his family’s history, Jacob ignites a fire within the asylum, intending to reshape destiny. As smoke fills the air and chaos unfolds, we return to the present, where Pia mourns the loss of her brother and friends, staring at photographs from her past, signifying elusive memories of pain and loss.

The tale culminates in a heartwrenching reflection, connecting the past and present, with echoes of life, death, and the enduring impact of the choices made amid the haunting walls of Eloise Asylum.