Population 436

Infobox Film
name = Population 436


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director = Michelle MacLaren
producer = Gavin Polone
writer = Michael Kingston
starring = Jeremy Sisto
Fred Durst
Charlotte Sullivan
music = Glenn Buhr
cinematography = Thomas Burstyn
editing = Gabriel Wrye
distributor = Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
released = September 5, 2006
runtime = 92 min.
country = Canada
United States
language = English
budget =
gross =
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website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0462482

"Population 436" is a 2006 mystery/horror film starring Jeremy Sisto, Fred Durst and Charlotte Sullivan.

ynopsis

Steve Kady (Jeremy Sisto), a US Census Bureau researcher is sent to the remote and seemingly idyllic village of Rockwell Falls to interview residents concerning the population. On the way to Rockwell Falls his car hits a pothole and bursts a tire. He is eventually picked up by Bobby Caine (Fred Durst), the Sheriff's Deputy, who drives him into Rockwell Falls and helps him find a place to stay.

During his stay, Kady notices a number of increasingly strange things about the town. People make vague allusions to 'the fever', and several residents treat him as though he were not just a visitor, but had moved to Rockwell Falls permanently. His research reveals that the town's population has remained at exactly 436 for over 100 years. People who try to leave Rockwell Falls seem to meet with bizarre and deadly accidents, which the residents believe to be the work of God. Kady also begins to have eerie dreams, about a truck, a cross and a doll.

Kady becomes romantically involved with Courtney Lovatt (Charlotte Sullivan), a local woman and the daughter of his host, much to the chagrin of Caine, who is also in love with her. He also befriends Amanda, a young girl whose father was killed trying to escape the town, and who is being held at Dr Greaver's clinic, on the pretext of treating her for schizophrenia. Courtney and Amanda both express a desire to leave the town, but are afraid of the consequences of trying.

After stumbling upon some books on Biblical numerology, Kady realises that the townspeople attach a mystical importance to the number 436 and are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep the population at exactly that number, including executing surplus residents. Anyone who expresses a desire to leave is treated for the 'fever' by Dr Greaver, the town doctor, with electroshock therapy or in extreme cases, frontal lobotomy. It gradually becomes apparent to Kady that the residents of Rockwell Falls have no intention of allowing him to leave.

After witnessing the execution of a seemingly willing woman at a town feast, Kady becomes hysterical, and is taken to the clinic to be treated for the 'fever'. He escapes the clinic, and is sheltered by a sympathetic resident, who reluctantly helps him plan his escape. After setting fire to the town garage as a diversion, Kady rescues Amanda from the clinic, but is forced to leave Courtney behind after discovering that she has been lobotomised by the Dr Greaver. As Kady and Amanda flee the town in a stolen tow-truck, he recognises the cross and the doll from his dream, in the truck. While he is distracted, the truck veers into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer, apparently killing them both.

The film ends with one of Kady's co-workers, who has come in search of him, being picked up by police officers after his car breaks down, echoing the beginning of the film.

Alternate ending

In an alternate ending, Kady and Amanda survive, as he swerves to avoid the truck at the last minute.

Cultural References

This movie carries a more-than-passing parallel/allusion to Shirley Jackson's classic short story, "The Lottery", published in New Yorker Magazine, 1948. This is particularly apparent in the sequence where the resident who is to be sacrificed to keep the population down is selected by drawing a name from a box full of slips of paper on which resident have written their names.

The story also contains references to numerology, in particular Biblical numerology. The residents of Rockwell Falls believe that the word solidarity has a numerological value of 13, which is also the sum of the digits of 436, the town's population (There are also 13 letters in the town's name). (See digit summing). The same trick is used in the movie "1408" in which the digits in the haunted room's number (1408) add up to 13. In "Population 436", special meanings are also attributed to the individual numbers 4, 3 and 6.

External links

*imdb title|0462482