Paradise Hills spoilers follow.
Netflix has become the go-to home for weird genre movies that might not find a release elsewhere, and Paradise Hills is the latest movie to benefit from it.
The sci-fi, starring Emma Roberts, Awkwafina and Milla Jovovich, premiered at Sundance in 2019 and received a limited release later in the year in the US, but its Netflix debut brings the movie to UK audiences for the first time.
Coming across like Alice in Wonderland-meets-The Handmaid's Tale, Paradise Hills is set at the eponymous facility.
It's run by the enigmatic duch*ess (Jovovich) who promises to turn women into perfect versions of themselves through etiquette classes, restricted diets, therapy and more.
Uma (Roberts) is the latest arrival, sent there to become the ideal wife for Son (Arnaud Valois). Uma wants to marry Markus (Jeremy Irvine), but her mother forbids it as Markus is a 'lower' and she wants Uma to marry an 'upper' like their family.
After meeting fellow residents Chloe (Danielle McDonald), Yu (Awkwafina) and popstar Amarna (Eiza González), Uma soon discovers that there's some sinister (well, more sinister) happening at Paradise Hills and they need to escape before it's too late.
But how does Paradise Hills really turn its residents into perfect versions of themselves? We have to go into spoilers to reveal all, so look away now if you haven't seen it.
Shortly after Amarna and Uma plan their escape, Amarna is told that she's leaving early so she tells Uma to leave with Markus, who has come to the facility in the guise of an employee to help Uma escape.
Amarna reveals that the residents are being drugged by the milk they're given so that they sleep through the night. Uma avoids drinking it one night and discovers that the staff have been taking residents away, but doesn't see why.
After Uma reacts badly to one treatment, she is drugged and sleeps for two weeks. When she wakes up two weeks later, she is told by the duch*ess that she is being sent home the next day.
Uma convinces Chloe and Yu not to drink the milk and they escape with her that night, but before they can leave, Yu is taken away for her final "session" before she is "completed", and they follow her to see doctors operating on her.
They fight the doctors and as Uma and Chloe escape with an injured Yu, finding a control room that lists all of their characteristics. Uma discovers that Markus was actually lying and is working with Paradise Hills.
Uma, Chloe and Yu meet a group of bandaged women who look just like them and say they're their "substitutes". The facility has been taking 'lowers' and through extensive surgeries, turning them into their residents to become the perfect, obedient versions.
Yu dies from her injuries, but before they leave, Uma gives the group her memory locket of her father, saying that her substitute needs to understand that Son was responsible for his death.
Uma and Chloe make their way into the forest underneath the facility where Chloe is snatched away. Uma then sees the duch*ess feeding on Chloe's body, revealing herself to be basically a vampire who feeds on the residents of Paradise Hills to revive herself.
It looks like Uma is going to be her next victim, but her substitute Ana saves her and confuses the duch*ess long enough for Uma to fatally stab her.
Uma and Ana escape in a rowing boat as the facility is destroyed, and Ana explains how she came to work for Paradise Hills: "I tried to take care of my two little brothers, but 16 hours a day working in a factory, it wasn't enough.
"This man came to our town and offered me this job, if you can call it a job. He promised me my brothers would never go hungry again. I had to become somebody else so I could survive. I had to become you."
We then cut back to the wedding between Uma and Son we see at the beginning of the movie, but it turns out that it was actually Ana we were seeing.
Uma is waiting for Son and after pretending to be the improved version, she kills Son and leaves it for Ana to 'discover' the body, after she sees that Uma has safely made her escape.
So Ana will get to live among the 'upper' society as the new-and-improved Uma, while Uma gets to be free from her family for good.
Paradise Hills is now available to watch on Netflix.
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Ian Sandwell
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
