Captivating horror film. You cannot stop watching till it is over.

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2017)

And then you find out it will never be over for the characters! Because, in fact (major spoiler here), this is a loop-de-loop movie with the last scene being identical to the first scene. What does that show? The last scene reveals that everything is starting all over again: ghosts who are caught in an endless circle of errors will continue to repeat their errors mindlessly time after time.
There is an old idea that if someone dies in a horrific, "unsatisfying" way, then their "ghost" may hang around for as long as it takes to resolve the contradictions of his/her death. With that in mind, since everyone in the movie is burned to death alive, everyone will be doomed to repeat this vicious cycle from the beginning until one or all do not make the same mistakes they made in the last days of their lives.
The movie makes sense if you consider that everyone you see must be a ghost - the four major characters and all the members of the crowd who invade the house. First, there is the Jennifer Lawrence character who never takes the opportunity to walk out on the nightmare of a husband she has who marginalizes her, neglects her and overrides all her wishes - the ultimate sexist; the Javier Bardem character who is so in love with himself as a writer that he non-stop feeds off of the admiration of the people who show up at his house, while never listening to his wife's pleas that he stop letting everyone into the house; the Michelle Pfeiffer character who undermines Lawrence and defers meekly to her controlling husband even when it hurts her own kids; the Ed Harris character who writes the dumbest will in the world which leaves his money to one son on the condition that everyone "cooperate" on the dispensation of funds. The resulting murder of one son by the other son is not surprising given that the parents have continually pit their sons against each other.
The crowd commits unforgivable "sins" such as pulling out fixtures in the house, literally destroying every room in the house, and then finally participating in the most disgusting, shocking scene in the movie which is to tear the tiny new-born baby limb from limb and to feast on its flesh so as to be "closer" to the great Bardem writer's essence, as if by that act they will elevate themselves to some plateau of personal esthetic value and purity that is supposedly encapsulated in the very existence of Bardem. Here you do get the idea of eating the flesh of the son of God.
I know a lot of people think this is a religious movie, but I think it's just a good old-fashioned ghost story about people who lived and died tragically, and who cannot find peace even in death,