Movie - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

 

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Plot

Abe Portman has told stories to his grandson Jake about battling monsters and spending his childhood at "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" at Cairnholm, an island off the coast of Wales. The home's children and headmistress, Miss Alma Lefay Peregrine, possess paranormal abilities and are known as "Peculiars". One day, Jake finds Abe dying with his eyes removed, who tells him to go to "the loop of September 3, 1943".

After the traumatic event, Jake begins attending therapy sessions with Dr. Golan. She encourages Jake's desire to travel to the United Kingdom for closure regarding his grandfather's death. Jake and his father Frank go to Cairnholm to investigate the children's home. Upon their arrival, Jake discovers that the home was destroyed during a Luftwaffe raid, but upon entering the ruins he finds the children from Abe's stories.

The children take Jake through a portal and he emerges in the year 1943 with the house still intact. Miss Peregrine explains she belongs to a class of female Peculiars named Ymbryne who can transform into birds (in Miss Peregrine's case, a peregrine falcon) and manipulate time. To avoid persecution for being Peculiars, she and the children hide from the outside world in a time loop she created, set to September 3, 1943, and accessible only to Peculiars, which allows them to live the same day repeatedly and avoid aging as long as they stay inside it.

Jake is introduced to the rest of the children, including aerokinetic Emma Bloom, whom he takes an interest in. He learns he is also a Peculiar like his grandfather, and can see the invisible monsters from his stories, called "Hollowgasts" (or "Hollows"). They are disfigured Peculiar scientists who killed a Ymbryne in a failed experiment to harvest her powers in an attempt to achieve immortality. Led by shapeshifter Mr. Barron, they hunt Peculiars to consume their eyeballs, which allow them to regain a visibly human appearance with milky-white eyes.

Wounded Ymbryne Miss Avocet arrives, explaining that Barron assaulted her in the January 2016 time loop at Blackpool, England, killed her children, and is trying to repeat the failed experiment using more Ymbrynes. Jake returns to 2016, to find that an elderly man has been killed by a Hollow, so goes back to the portal to warn them that the Hollow is near. He is followed by an ornithologist who is actually Mr. Barron in disguise.

Barron had tried to extract the location of Miss Peregrine's loop from Abe, but his hungry Hollow companion Malthus killed Abe before he could do so. He then posed as Dr. Golan, encouraging Jake to go to the island so he could lead him to the loop. Using Jake as a hostage, Barron forces Miss Peregrine to trap herself in bird form and takes her to Blackpool, leaving Jake, the other children, and Miss Avocet as prey for Malthus.

Malthus kills Miss Avocet, then Jake and the children escape just as the Luftwaffe raid destroys the house, killing Malthus. Without Miss Peregrine to reset it, the loop closes, leaving them stuck in 1943. Salvaging a sunken ocean liner, RMS Augusta, that Emma has used as a personal hideout, they travel to Blackpool and enter its January 2016 loop. They fight and destroy Barron's Wight and Hollow allies, and rescue Miss Peregrine and other captive Ymbrynes. When the last remaining Hollow arrives, Jake sees and avoids it, so it instead kills Barron and is then in turn killed by Jake.

Jake says goodbye to the children in 1943 while he stays in 2016 and goes to find Abe, who hasn't yet been killed due to Barron's death in early 2016 has erased his presence in Florida later on. After telling Abe of his adventures, Abe gives Jake a map of international time loops. He takes it, serves in World War II, and eventually reunites with his friends in 1943. Jake, Emma, Miss Peregrine and the children journey to seek a happy time loop.