Original subtitles

Remember how you used to love that, dad?

How we'd all build a snowman after the first big storm,

and I would give it the carrot nose,

the raisin eyes...

And Harry would give him the cardboard violin.

Then Tommy, of course, would make up these...

Ridiculous horror stories

about how the snowman was gonna kidnap all the children...

and turn them into icicles

that would melt away into the earth.

Harry?

Harry, do us a favor. Join us.

Come on, Harry. Sit down.

Your glass.

Now, I'm keeping my family by my side at all times.

My beautiful wife...

My lovely children.

Fight the good fight.

Now, speaking of something that's not so funny,

does anyone know if Tommy is going to make a house call today?

Lillian, why don't you call Tommy?

Sure.

Does he have a name?

We already have somebody to shovel the driveway, thanks.

I'm sorry to bother you.

Tommy shellner, I grew up about a 1/2 mile from here on Tennyson drive.

Shellner? Wait a second.

Is your dad Dr. shellner?

Yeah.

We heard he wasn't well.

That's kinda why I'm here.

See...

We had a family dog that died about ten years ago.

Dad had him cremated, and buried

in an urn somewhere in this neighborhood.

He forgot where.

But now he wants to find the ashes

so he can be buried with it when he dies.

And I was hoping that maybe

you'd give me a few hours to look in your front yard.

Dad was...

He was nuts about that dog.

I'll tell you what:

You give me an hour to dig,

I'll take care of those icicles on the roof.

Plus all the ones up on your...

Up on your trees.

I'm sorry, this just isn't a good time.

Icicles are dangerous.

Think about your kids.

The first winter living with us,

Tommy plucked icicles off the house and the trees.

He said he was protecting his new family.

This from a 5-year-old.

Tell me, Harry...

Is your brother still looking for his dog?

He's been taking the shovel out every morning.

I don't know what he does with it.

I found this hanging from your bedroom window.

You gotta deal with this shit, ma.

Still high treason to refuse your brisket, ma?

It's like communing with the cow, ma.

Why don't you try communing

with some of my string beans, wise-ass?

So, Tommy...

You said you weren't coming back until you find the family dog.

You're back, so...

Did you find the family dog?

Leonard...

Will you go check on you father and see if he's ok?

Please?

Oh, 25 years, ma...

Dad can't fix the faulty wiring?

Well, he says that it gives the house character,

although I think that this...

Home has quite enough character as it is.

That's a boat-tailed grackle.

I know this is a bad time...

Your son, Tommy, stopped by my daughter's house this afternoon...

No, it's alright.

I wanted to make some muffins for your husband.

I'm Elizabeth Robins.

Many years ago, your husband...

Tried to help my son,

Joseph.

This is my son.

Your husband,

he was the only doctor who never gave up on my son after the war.

May god be with you and your family.

Mrs. Robins?

I hope that your son is ok.

I hope so, too.

He left us a long long time ago.

Please, wish Dr. shellner a happy birthday.

Something's up.

You're helping with the chores.

Maybe I just want to...

Spend some time with my mother.

Ohhh...

I think I'm gonna quit the philarmonic.

But you're...

But you're one of their best violinists!

Do you remember that...

Performance anxiety i got rid of years ago?

I think it's back.

But it will pass, Harry.

Please, don't tell your father a word about this.

You know how much he loves

watching you perform in the orchestra.

Yeah.

You know what?

You're right.

I hate doing chores.

I'm not reading your obituary...

I wanna hear what my family has written about me for "the New York times."

Mom?

Dad wants me to read his obituary.

Nathaniel, can't you find something better to do with your time?

Why don't you watch the chaplin DVD?

I wanna know how I'm going to be remembered by the public.

I vote nobituary.

- Nobituary. - Nobituary, dad.

I don't know what this "nobituary" means, but I want my obituary.

Now, please.

Let me hear it.

Alright.

"Noted psychiatrist, Dr. Nathaniel shellner, passed away from lung cancer.

"Dr. shellner is best known for creating the post-traumatic crisis center

"for American soldiers returning from war and suffering from PTSD..."

Say I lived to 102.

Nobody does fact-checks anymore anyway.

Wait, I thought that we had a family veto!

This is not a democracy lillibug, please.

"He lived till he was 102.

"He was awarded the nobel prize in 1972 for developing a branch of psychiatry

"which was used to address shell shock in war veterans.

"During the cold war, from 1957 till 1968,

"Dr. shellner was director of research

"at the joint-us military psychiatric testing and evaluation center

"in Quantico, Virginia.

"President lyndon Johnson called him a true American patriot..."

President Johnson? He actually said that about me?

- Pop... - ok, go ahead.

"Noted philanthropist, Dr. shellner has a wife of 41 years.

"And four children.

"Three of them adopted,

"including horror novelist, Tommy shellner.

"Biological son,

"Leonard shellner, now heads the post-traumatic crisis center,

"continuing the work of his late father."

The only thing I d change is this mention of you

being my only biological child.

See, all my children are blood to me.

There's nothing like hearing your own obituary

to put you in the mood for Charlie chaplin.

You know what, dad?

What do you say that we all go outside

and build you a snowman?

Save the frostbite for another occasion.

You know what I'd really like?

I'd like to hear Harry play the violin.

Harry!

Sorry, dad.

I think I need some air.

That makes two of us.

Tommy!

Tell me about your new book.

Does it have a title yet?

The red Robin.

Our favorite bird.

Do you know how many baby Robins you rescued in the past 30 years?

59.

What's even more remarkable is that you didn't become an ornithologist.

You tell dad you quit therapy?

It's none of your fucking business!

It is,

when your psychiatrist is in my practice,

and I'm still your brother.

Therapy is for rough patches and I've smoothed mine out.

Then why are you still trolling around like a vagrant

looking for your dead dog?

What is so important about this urn, Tommy?

If you just tell me where it is, dad, I'll be on my way.

It's right in here.

Tommy!

Excuse me, can you please remind your brother

who this evening is for?

You remember when pop would draw a picture?

He'd say,

"just look at the picture, whatever you want...

"Imagine it and it will be yours."

Yeah, it's worked for me so many times before...

But not now.

I have to have that urn,

but he's never gonna tell me where it is.

Oh god, he doesn't know where it is, Tommy.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

- I'm not talking about the dog. - No shit it's not about the dog.

It's about your obsessions.

It's why you started writing.

Your stories cost me and Harry years of sleep.

You know that?

You still have nightmares, Julie?

I think I've gotten over your ghost stories by now.

I'm not talking about my stories.

Do you remember when we used to...

Crawl into each other's beds after having nightmares?

Yeah, of course.

So what if I was to tell you that they were real?

What happened in kazan was real.

I don't know why you're bringing this up...

I'm not talking about kazan.

I'm talking about this house.

See, se was 8 years old when he had his tonsils taken out.

Then he changed.

Before the surgery,

I told him he could have all the ice cream in the world.

And when he woke up,

he asked the nurses for vanilla and then...

And they said he couldn't have any.

He cried all night long.

See, that's when i lost his trust.

Dad, ice cream has never caused PTSD,

unless I missed that class.

Check.

Well, Leonard's right.

It wouldn't say much for my character

if all my vagrant-like trolling was caused by ice cream, would it?

What is it, Tommy?

Tommy?

What?

- Dad... - mmmm?

Please tell me what I need to know.

The only thing i have to give you,

if you're really looking for your dog,

is right there.

Happy birthday, pop.

Please read the preface...

It'll explain why I'm looking for the urn.

And please read it out loud.

"Dedicated to Dr. Nathaniel shellner.

"I named this book after the very first bird

"he introduced me to,

"the winged friend

"that began my love affair with creatures of flight.

"I always associated the Robin

"with the love that i felt towards my father,

"papa, my protector.

"Death is his first living memory.

"He and his sister

"witnessed their parents savage and barbaric murder.

"Civil wars packed the state's orphanages beyond capacity.

"At 4 years old, he slit his wrists

"over a sink of putrid yellow water..."

I vote that we read something happier.

"His botched suicide was his first lesson in irony.

"For had he never tried and failed to take his life,

"he would never have known the love of the man

"who would come to be his and his sister s protector.

"He was an American psychiatrist working with the peace corps.

"He was a gentle, big bear of a man

"the orphans called 'Mr. levis, '

"because that s all he ever wore,

"and Russian children were obsessed with blue jeans.

"So taken with them was this doctor that one day,

"instead of giving them levis,

"he gave them plane tickets

"and asked them to come back home with him...

"To America."

Continue!

"When the siblings arrived in a prosperous suburb of Philadelphia,

"they joined a family with one adopted son

"and an older biological child.

"For the first 3 years, they wore blue jeans,

"and knew nothing but happiness and love.

"But everything would change...

"But everything would change...

"With the nightmares.

"They always occurred in the same place:

"A dark, dank area inhabited

"by three silhouetted figures wearing

"muted grey hospital scrubs.

"These are the masked men he would refer to as...

"The shadow doctors.

"His scalp was penetrated by industrial needles.

"Sleeves were drilled into his cranium,

"electrodes were slid into place

"where they grazed the gelatinous area

"of brain tissue...

"sending volts of electricity

"down his pathways and into the brain,

"it's how they destroyed his will and primed him for programming.

"They split his personality into different alters,

"personalities that sprung to life when triggered by secret commands,

"alters that who would do things

"this boy would never do in his true pure state.

"As they manifested each alter,

"they needed to test their separate consciousness.

"The shadow doctors would bring forth a baby Robin.

"The chick was placed into the boy s hands

"but the boy was not himself,

"but an alter.

"With no conscience,

"He tore off the young hatchling's head with his bare hands.

"Cut to 25 years later,

"and the boy is now a man

"and the man is having the nightmares all over again.

"The experimentation...

"The shadow doctors.

"This man goes to hypnotherapist to dig deeper into his head

"to find out what's really happening and that's when the alters come out.

"And to prove

"to him that it happened,

"they told him about the urn.

"Inside the urn,

"are his...

"Future missions...

"As well as the codes to dismantle the programming and give him back

"his will which they had taken away, so now,

"in order to save himself,

"and his siblings,

"he must find the urn,

"stealthily hidden by the head shadow doctor."

Papa,

my protector.

Time to wake up.

Tommy!

My son! My son!

Slow, slow.

Don't get dizzy.

Slow.

Here you go.

Ok.

Honey.

Unless he tells me where the urn is,

there's no point in me sticking around here.

I'm gonna be dead one way or another.

If I don't get those codes...

Alcohol, imagination and too much time on your hands,

that's what this is.

The truth comes in three stages:

First it's ridiculed, then it is violently opposed,

then it becomes self-evident.

I don't want to hear anything more about this, Tommy, you need help.

Course you d say that.

'Cause he kept you in the dark like the rest of us.

Do I have to explain to you how much this man loves you?

You know who else loves his patients? Joseph Mengele.

Oh my god!

Why do you think so many presidents called dad a true American patriot?

I guarantee you it wasn't for shocking mice and hypnotizing apes!

Mengele, Tommy!

Nathaniel, please, take something.

You'll feel better.

Your father is dying.

And all he can think about is his emotionally-distraught son

who compares him to a Nazi.

We re worlds past emotionally-distraught, mom.

Leonard, please.

Tommy.

Back in '74,

I had a patient who served in Vietnam.

Traumatized beyond anything I've ever seen in my practice.

Returns from his tour of duty

convinced that he's a silent assassin

working for the U.S. government.

A victim of mind-control experimentation...

Project bluebird.

Says after the war, he was kidnapped by CIA operatives...

Locked away,

tortured for 6 months

till they broke him into different personalities.

But his military record showed he was actually in my lai.

See,

beneath the imaginary story was the real story.

When the incident at my lai was brought up,

he had no memory of it at all.

He fought to hold on to the fictional conspiracy

that haunted him.

This is called dissociative amnesia, Tommy.

So powerful is the mind,

so imaginative the psyche...

Yours is no different.

The things you had seen as a child

were unleashed to you in exactly the same way.

Now,

what you've written here,

is a compelling

piece of fiction.

That's all it is, it's just fiction.

Oh, I have news for you, Tommy.

We cremated the dog,

but we never buried him in an urn.

We just spread his ashes out in the backyard.

That's it.

I may be the writer, dad,

but that's not fiction!

I'll find it myself.

Ok, thank you.

Barnabis can take him tonight. I reserved a bed.

Hospitalization is not an option.

I can get through to him.

Why don't you feed him some vanilla ice cream?

Tell him you're sorry, maybe that'll work.

Or I could run out, get an urn.

No, ma, ma!

It's ok.

Cleaning is how i retain my sanity.

Why don't you give your father one of your massages?

Julie, if you ever give up photography, you could do this for a living.

Thanks.

Thanks a lot, dad.

Your mother tells me you're thinking of moving back home.

Don't do it for his sake, Julie.

It's not just about Tommy. Mom s gonna need help.

Some of the best advice i ever got was

not from a psychiatrist.

If you love somebody, set them free.

You're just saying that because I'm a sting fan.

No, I'm saying it because i love you and because

I want you to have a life outside of your brother.

This is my problem to fix.

I'm his protector.

If a man fails his family, he fails life.

I was never the cause of your suffering, Tommy.

Never.

But I did it.

What?

I don't have the urn.

But I have the codes.

One,

twenty-seven,

and fourteen, fifteen,

sixteen.

Those are our birthdays.

Yeah.

It's easy to know when to send you and your siblings out

on a classified mission.

- You're lying. - Yeah, of course, I'm lying.

And you know how you know?

Because everything you said tonight was horseshit.

No matter how deep you dig,

the only thing you'll find is more shit,

and more lies!

Let me just not waste your time and cut to the truth...

- Tell me! - I'm going to die!

Yeah, your protector.

The man who saved your life...

many times.

You're regressing to the state before I adopted you.

You had lost your parents.

You were terrified.

You were helpless.

I know, I've been there too. I've been to that place.

I know the feeling well.

I'm not the monster in the closet

with the electrodes and the drills, Tommy.

I'm just the guy that held you, and wouldn't let you go

until you could stand on your own two feet.

I don't want you to die.

Yeah, you know what?

Neither do I.

So let's just enjoy the time that I'm still here...

Together.

And just laugh at death.

Thank god for chaplin!

Tommy!

I thought you liked "the gold rush".

And you almost had me...

With your "I'm not the monster in the closet" speech.

Tommy!

It's like this whole fucking house

is part of some experiment.

You guys think it's an accident that dad's drawings

fill every inch of wall space in this house?

You see a sketch of a bird, right?

That's not a wing, that's a fucking code.

They're all fucking codes!

Look at this! Look at this!

You see a picture of a little boy with his parents, right?

You look closer,

you see the guiding hand of a mad man!

This isn't our home.

It's a cryptic, psychiatric agenda!

And you!

Oh, you are a monster.

This is a valium.

Take it, Tommy. It's not a request.

You're never gonna forgive yourself for tonight.

Hey sis, what do you say, you me and Harry,

we make one for old time's sake?

Cut it out, Tommy!

I will get the carrot nose and the blueberry eyes.

Hey, you look cool.

There we go, now he looks good.

He's missing something,

missing something. Here we go.

See, this way, old frosty here...

Will let everybody know that visits,

what a normal fucking family we got.

Now, give him a name.

What the fuck is your problem?

Worst thing in the world i can do

would be to move back home for you.

Dad was right!

What are you talking about?

I can't cure you, Tommy.

I won't.

Let the rumpus begin.

Harry,

the last time you had those tremors, you were in therapy.

Harry?

What is it?

My sleep...

I...

I don't anymore.

Fire.

I see children on fire.

I just stand there,

watch them burn.

I know it sounds ridiculous.

But I feel like I've done something bad.

I feel...

I wake up and I feel like a...

I feel like a murderer.

Jesus fucking Christ!

How long have you been this way, Harry?

I don't know.

Be honest, Harry.

It started when Tommy moved in.

Harry, how can I help you to make you feel better? Tell me.

I don't know, I...

I just...

I just need to believe that nothing went wrong in this house.

Why?

What do you think happened?

I don't know.

Do you think...?

Do you think I had people

perform mind-control experiments on you?

I don't know.

I just...

I just wanted to express myself, that s all.

The power lines must have frozen.

Then try explaining why the rest of the block has electricity.

I had to block the transmission.

Tommy?

Tommy?

There's thousands of microscopic sleeves in my skull,

this is how the electrodes access my brain.

These wires dad won't fix, they're not faulty.

They're set up with transmitters...

No!

Please! If you have any cell phones,

turn them off for the remainder of the flight!

If he wasn't your son, you'd already have him committed.

I won't abandon Tommy,

or any of my children.

You're not abandoning your children,

you're abandoning your reason.

Harry, where are you going?

Looking for the ashes of the burned children?

Look, everybody has a right to investigate their past.

Dad said my parents were killed by rebels, what else?

Harry, we never held anything back from you.

Did I do something vicious?

No, Harry, no!

Did I kill anybody?

Did I set fire to a home filled with kids?

No, that s preposterous!

Maybe...

You're shielding me, too.

Maybe you're shielding all of us.

Don't do this to dad, Harry.

Fuck you, Leonard.

What are you doing with these?

I was about to ask you the same question.

Before we bought the house, it came with a bomb shelter.

Your mother kept the original photos until we made our bid.

- I've been in that room. - That's impossible!

We sealed it up,

grew the garden over it immediately after we moved in.

Then how would I know that space if I've never seen these pictures?

Maybe you heard your father talk about it.

No, I've seen that space so many times before!

I know that room!

I know that room too.

I don't know how I do,

but I've definitely seen that room before.

This is freaking me out.

- I don't fucking believe this. - Dad...

I remember this, it was...

Dank...

Really stuffy, not a lot of room to move,

really tight little space.

The floor was made of concrete, and it smelt a lot like

- rubbing alcohol. - Rubbing alcohol.

Who s bullshitting who, doctor?

Somebody please tell me what the hell is happening?

This family has bought the farm and the fertilizer.

Where is it?

Tommy, that place was sealed decades ago!

Which way was it?

The garden?

You can't tell mom and dad about this, you hear?

This is our little secret.

Nobody else can know.

You're blinded by your devotion to Tommy.

Look what it's cost to Harry.

I know that I took that photograph.

And it scares the shit out of me because

I can just feel that something bad is gonna happen

to Tommy and Harry because of the person in the foreground.

It's just your head playing tricks, Julie.

Of course you're gonna say that...

Because that person is you.

Jesus Christ!

So, now I'm part of dad s imaginary foot soldiers?

If dad wanted to recruit,

he certainly wouldn't have to look any further than his own eldest son.

What did I ever do to you, Julie?

That's a very good question.

What did you do to me?

You got Tommy's virus, all of you.

He's poisoned you against me.

I wouldn't give him that much credit.

Thirty-five nests we counted that year.

Now he's turned the Robin into some horrible symbol of...

Child abuse.

Remember that weekend you went to the conference,

and I visited my mother,

in '85.

That's when he began to change.

He was eight years old.

There's some...

There's something that's always bothered me.

Leonard was taking care of the kids.

I asked him if something happened while we were away

and he said nothing.

Leonard always felt threatened by the others.

I think he felt we gave them

preferential treatment and he resented that.

Look at him now.

How he's thrived.

What I think mom is trying to say is that maybe I raped,

molested and tortured Tommy and the others.

No...

It seems to me like the women of this family

would like to point to me as the culprit.

- Talk to Julie lately? - Oh, Leonard.

Don't lie.

- Always hated me. - That's absurd!

You and dad, both...

You treat them a little better.

I accepted that.

I got the genes, but I didn't get the attention.

And I understood why.

But I'd be lying if I said i didn't take that personally.

I never acted on it...

Not like how you're suggesting.

You have no idea what the hell I'm thinking.

Sorry, dad.

I love you both,

but I remember the exact date

your biological son

mattered a lot less in this house.

January 14th...

1981.

That's when you brought Tommy here.

Who the fuck is that?

If you don't give him a name,

he'll turn the children into icicles.

What are you doing, Harry?

I saw the red Robin, Tommy.

Red Robin?

I know...

I know who started the fires

that killed the children.

I know who made the pathways in your skull.

The Robin's in the kitchen, Tommy.

I saw it.

You want the Robin?

It'll lead you to the urn.

What do you mean it's in the kitchen?

You're not making any sense, Harry!

I saw the Robin, Tommy.

It all made sense.

Harry!

Tommy!

Tommy, what happened?

Harry!

What did you do to him, Tommy?

He's going to be ok.

What have you done?

He's gonna be ok.

He tried to shoot himself.

He only grazed his ear, but he's gonna be ok.

But why?

You've no right to ask that question.

You have to give him a name...

He'll turn all the children into icicles...

What? Harry!

If you don't give him a name, he'll turn the children into icicles.

What? you're what?

Icicles will melt away into the earth.

Leonard, call an ambulance!

Mom, no ambulance.

Tommy?

Mother...

Tommy!

Harry said the red Robin was in the kitchen.

I don't understand, the red Robin?

He said it's what did this to us.

This doesn't mean i think you're right,

or I believe anything you've said.

Never seen these keys before. What are they for?

Torture chamber? Bomb shelter?

I don't know.

Harry said the red Robin's in the kitchen.

That must be what he's talking about!

Leonard, stop!

Stop it! Leonard, stop it!

Stop that! Stop it!

Tommy! Tommy!

Tommy!

Leonard, stand up!

What are you doing?

He's mine now.

Can you sit down?

Leonard, where you taking him?

Leonard!

Hey, what just happened?

Where's Tommy?

Leonard, where is Tommy?

Fuck you!

Leonard!

Leonard!

Leonard!

Leonard!

Here, sweetheart.

Take it.

Ok.

Call in the children.

Tommy's fine.

Barnabis is on its way.

You'd better have yourself a stiff drink.

I don't drink.

Neither did your mother.

In 1957, I was appointed director of research

at the joint-us military psychiatric

testing and evaluation center

at Quantico, Virginia.

I was selected to be

on the front line of our war against communism.

The office of special services and the CIA

launched a campaign,

mk-ultra,

to root out the enemy...

Not by the use of bullets or bombs but...

By the use of the brain as a weapon of choice.

Sure, I was a lead psychiatrist in my field.

But there was another reason that they put me in charge.

You see, i was only 8 years old...

When my family was visited by the friends of Stalin's regime,

and I had my first real taste of...

Communism.

A few years into the campaign,

when we were told that we'd be experimenting on...

Russian spies,

north vietnamese prisoners of war,

suspected Chinese subversives,

I thought...

"This is my chance to get even with those...

"Fucking communists!"

I thought of that 8-year-old boy...

And what he saw...

And I thought...

How I could

make him forget

about that awful day forever.

Years later into the experiments,

I realized that the patients

were not what I was told, enemies of America.

They were Americans.

Mostly soldiers.

Men who were so traumatized by war,

they didn't even know who they were.

"Expendables," our government called them.

Men who could be easily programmed.

But...

The experiments went on, regardless.

But I resigned when Leonard was born.

Anyone touching my children, the thought of that was...

Please, believe me,

when I tell you that nobody in this family

has ever been experimented on.

This is a joke, right?

You...

You're saying that you're one of those...

Scientists in Tommy's story?

That isn't true.

He's not well.

This is the morphine.

How I wish that was so.

Nathaniel!

You know it's a lie! You're not capable of those things!

Look at the great things that you've done.

This is Nathaniel shellner, this is my father,

not some mad scientist.

You're exhausted.

And you're sick.

And you're desperate for Tommy's attention.

So much so that you'd incriminate yourself,

that you would ruin your entire life's work.

You lied.

- Leonard! - Leonard!

Stop it, he can't breath!

Stop!

Leonard! he can't breathe! Get off!

Please, let go!

Mom!

Tommy!

Tommy!

There was a time

before we adopted

when you would take these long business trips.

And...

I never asked why or where.

I never meant to keep you in the dark.

We weren't allowed to tell anyone, not even our spouses.

But if you would've told me,

I would've said choose me or crimes against humanity.

And then maybe we wouldn't be where we are this evening.

I never laid a finger on those children.

Maybe you didn't,

and maybe you did.

You certainly touched other people s children.

Lillian, soldiers who were far past the breaking point,

before the agency got hold of them.

And what about our kids?

When we found them, weren't they past the breaking point?

I quit working for the government

before we adopted them.

Yeah, but they keep you on a short leash.

And you are still in touch with you cronies.

Nathan...

Did you experiment

on our children?

Never.

Never!

Vietnam vets,

political prisoners,

random civilians.

How many?

Maybe 500 or 1,000.

The records were shredded, you know.

Give him what he came for.

Give him a fucking urn.

Truth comes out.

There is enough morphine in this syringe to kill five people.

You think I want to inject you with this?

Get arrested for murdering my father?

Be locked up,

truth never comes out, that's just...

- Tommy, what are you doing? - You stay back!

See, now you confessed your sins to the family...

And now I want the fucking urn.

Where is it, dad?

Tommy.

I told you the Robin was in the kitchen.

You have a concussion, Harry.

If you don't give him a name...

Christ!

He'll kidnap all the children...

I know the fucking story, ok?

And turn them into icicles...

I don't really care about the icicles right now, ok?

He...

Will kidnap the children and turn them into icicles.

It was never a story, Tommy.

It was never a story.

Back in '74, I had a patient who served in Vietnam.

Returns from his tour of duty

convinced that he's a silent assassin

working for the United States government.

Victim of mind-control experimentation...

Project bluebird.

We cremated the dog,

but we never buried him in an urn.

It's like this whole fucking house...

Is part of some experiment.

You should know what growing up around civil war could do to a child.

I've seen that space so many times before,

I know that room!

So powerful is the mind.

So imaginative the psyche.

The truth comes in 3 stages.

First it is ridiculed,

then violently opposed, then it becomes self-evident.

I'm not the monster in the closet...

With the electrodes and the drills, Tommy.

Dad, please tell me what I need to know.

What you've written here is a compelling piece of fiction.

That's all it is, just fiction.

I'm Elizabeth Robins.

Many years ago, your husband...

Tried to help my son,

Joseph.

This is my son.

One of our first experiments,

he was deployed,

never heard from again.

Oh my god...

Oh my god!

You can't tell mom and dad about this, ok?

This is our little secret, nobody else can know.

If they found out that I went away, they're gonna kill me.

You guys can handle things while I'm away, just...

Don't let any strangers in the house.

Leonard!

You're dead!

I've worked with your father.

I know he's away on business, so

I thought I'd surprise his children with some presents.

What's his name?

He doesn't have a name.

Well I heard if you don't give him a name,

he'll kidnap all the children

and turn them into icicles.

What's your name?

I don't have one.

The shadow doctor told us

if we gave him a name,

he'd turn us all into icicles.

That way, we'd never remember who he was.

Doctor shellner.

I never understood

why I became so scared of icicles

suddenly in my adult life.

I know you kids must be scared.

But you must look at me as your guardian angel,

here to protect you.

The world...

Is a dangerous place.

So we have to hide.

You're gonna have to learn to trust me.

Get off him!

Trust what I'm doing is in your best interest.

Stop it, please!

Trust I'm gonna care for you as if you were my very own.

Trust.

72 hours and you already have that gaze.

This is great progress, my little ones.

Are you vietnamese?

You know, i was never in my lai.

But your dad put a chip in my head

so I couldn't remember the experiments.

He convinced me i burned children alive.

Fires...

That's all I ever dreamed about.

I couldn't sleep the last 5 years.

You have the gaze.

You know I'm not here to hurt you, honey.

Right?

I'm not the monster in the closet.

This is your dad's parting gift to me...

An urn.

He kept me awake for a week,

forced me to stare at it,

hypnotized me to believe...

I killed my own mother...

And cremated her.

Your father had a strange fascination with birds.

How he knew one was split from the self and ready to be an alter.

To take a baby bird's life

meant one was successfully altered.

Beautiful creatures,

harbingers of spring.

But seasons come

and go.

Now, your turn.

You must kill without conscience or regret.

Don't worry.

I'm your protector.

As I thought...

You aren't primed for programming yet.

I was just like you.

See, your dad...

Gave me a transorbital lobotomy,

hammered a pick like this right through my eye socket,

freed me...

Get back here!

If you don't give him a name,

he'll turn all the children into icicles!

If you don't give him a name...

He'll turn all the children into icicles.

You, sonofabitch!

Tommy! Tommy!

Your children are ready to serve their country, doctor.

Oh my god!

My children...

Oh my god! What has he done to you?

Sit down.

I thought I could undo what

Joseph had done.

That I could make it as if it never happened.

I already succeeded in programming Harry to

forget what happened to his biological family.

So I knew that

the science worked.

I thought experimentation could be used to good ends, and...

It was my problem to fix.

Your mother and Leonard never knew.

I was responsible.

Dad wants to talk to you.

It's ok.

It's ok.

A monster...

A monster who loves his children

more than life

is still a monster.