In Descendent, a father to be, Sean, has his fears of fatherhood seemingly intersect with aliens. Obviously there’ll be spoilers, so read this post at your own risk.
So yeah, the Descendent is technically an alien abduction movie. The movie’s very name cleverly alludes to the ending, which I’ll get to later. So, Descendent is an independent film, but it is high quality production, with solid acting, good camera work and proper usage of effects and everything else. The story itself is relatable: a husband (Sean) becoming a father and having all kinds of fears, worries, and pressure. And it’s tied in with aliens so perfectly that it would seem to just be a coping mechanism for Sean. Whether or not you believe the aliens in the movie were real, the aliens undoubtedly served as an element for Sean to blame his inadequacies of becoming a father on aliens, rather than himself. I mean, a head injury that leaves Sean unable to work reliably, and limiting his function to being a future dad? Blame the aliens. Sean’s abduction by aliens also give him super hearing, the ability to make art, and weird cryptic visions, with some of them obviously representing his fears of fatherhood, making the whole alien thing seem a bit ridiculous.
But the ending of the movie helps to explain the visions, the drawings, and why he saw his dead dad in the ship, as well as continually dropping hints that Sean is not actually experiencing all of the events in between him climbing up a roof and getting abducted and his “reentry” (his descent back to Earth) back at the same spot where he was abducted, where a random guy in a pickup truck helps Sean out. Yup, the several days that Sean thinks he is living through was probably a simulation that lasted no more than a few hours. Him seeing his dead dad near the beginning, and him drawing his childhood home and finding a dog that looks exactly like his, it’s his memories bleeding (as his head is being probed) into the convincing simulation the aliens are running to make Sean think he’s still on Earth. The ambiguous visions or moments where he’s walking away or pounding on something? It’s his mind telling him that he is trapped on an alien ship, and he cannot get out, as much as he wants to. Sean almost figured out that the simulation wasn’t real when he cut his hand with a knife, except it felt real enough for him to still think he was in reality.
We don’t know why the aliens are doing this, though I bet they are mining human memories to better tailor advertisements for people. Just kidding. Maybe. This “theory” can be confirmed by noticing Sean’s clothing: He’s wearing the same stuff he was when he got abducted and on reentry back to Earth. And the guy with the pickup truck obviously confirms that the aliens are real. He has a notebook with several lists of coordinates; it seems he knows when and where abductions occur and as well as reentry of abducted people by the aliens. What was the point of all this? Well, if anything, Sean’s simulation could be seen as therapy, letting him experience several days to work out his fears to becoming a father and to do the one and only thing he needs to do to be a good father and husband: To be there.