The opening scene shows a woman reading a slip of paper
and
there's romantic music with some opening subtitles, then
the
camera looks around and you see the musicians playing the
music.
When the horror scene starts you see the Tuba guy in the
mirror. There's a chase through an ongoing
opera (which is
standard in
Sherlock Holmes) but then when the tune changes pitch and
they are on the street you see the musicians playing the
off-
tune tune.
The musicians are supposedly not part of the movie and
have
nothing to do with the plot, but by chance they are always
present. Even when the guy in the car turns on the radio.
(There's a flash over to the studio, and you see the guy
telling
the news and the musicians playing the advertisement.)
At some point it starts becoming disturbing, especially since
the title of the movie was The Musicians, but the plot
seemingly has nothing to do with them or their story.
The ending scene has the names of the players in the titles
and each one stands up, showing their face and ruining the
effect that we're all alone on the porch looking at the
forest
landscape.
There's still one last snake left unacounted for, so the
audience cannot leave just as yet, and standing up, they
stay
while the subtitles continue running.
After the words THE END, and the scene with the cat killing
the snake, and after the final music reaches its climatic
ending, there is silence. The music
has stopped, and it is finally revealed that the murder
victim in the second scene was the second violinist and that
the sniper gun which was used was actually a trombone.
The murderer is sent to work camp on an isolated Island but
there too he hears the music.
During the movie he had tried to prove himself innocent,
and now it is revealed that no one actually died. There was
no murder in the first place, and it was just a plot to frame
him. The shot that was heard was actually the sound of a
whip on stage, played by the drummer.
The movie ends with a solo picolo trailing away. The camera
turns and we see it played by a woman. The woman who
read the letter at the beginning.