David Fincher’s relentless thriller winks towards the end of the film.
The world of cinema is full of ‘easter eggs’ and no matter how much time passes, it is still just as fun to find them. These winks are usually very well hidden, waiting for some very observant viewer to find them. If you like discovering them more than looking for them, here is one that you cannot ignore.
In SevenDavid Fincher’s great ‘thriller’ released in 1996, there is a subliminal image that appears at the end of the film and that you probably have not seen until now. It lasts less than a second and is almost imperceptible to the viewer, but it makes perfect sense for the conclusion..
We are, therefore, at the end of Seven. John Doe (Kevin Spacey) has been exposed by David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) and now they find themselves in the middle of nowhere for the killer to show them the last two victims of his deadly plan.
At the height of the climax, a delivery man delivers a package. In one of the most harrowing moments in movie history, the box is revealed to contain the head of Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), Mills’ partner, whom he killed earlier that morning. To top things off, the psychopath informs him that Tracy was pregnant.
This is where he inserts a subliminal image so that it stays with you for life. In this video he appears at 4 minutes and 57 seconds.
Between anger and despair, as his partner pleads with him not to kill John Doe to prevent his criminal act from being completed, Mills is stunned. At precisely one hour and 55 minutes into the film, a frame of Tracy’s face appears. An angelic vision which is what precipitates Mils’s choice to shoot John to death.
That simple plane is what gives more strength to David Fincher’s film and, in a review, gives even more reasons to consider this ‘thriller’ as a masterpiece of suspense.
