MovieChat Forums > Crowhaven Farm (1970) Discussion > Explain the ending to me please (SPOILER...

Explain the ending to me please (SPOILER)


Just watched this, but the ending didn't make sense...The film deals with re-incarnation, and the final scene shows Maggie with her baby meeting a police officer who seems to be a "new version" of her husband (because of the way he ties a bow).

But Maggie's husband had only just died and yet this policeman is already about 30-40 years old - so he couldn't be the husband reborn again.

Is this just me not getiing it?

reply

I took it to mean that "they" were still watching Maggie, even though she had moved away. Wasn't there an earlier scene where Maggie's husband showed Jennifer how he tied a bow? I think the cop was one of them, and his tying the bow for Maggie was meant to let her know she was still a person of interest. This is just my take.

reply



She exchanged her husband's life to save hers, like she did in her past life, so probably the "clan" will make her life uncomfortable to make her pay...I guess.

reply

She exchanged her life for her husband's so she could raise her baby. If I remember correctly she had been accused of being a witch and while the people were putting heavy stones on her in the past, she gave up the witches and they were killed and that is why the witches came back for revenge. The little girl wanted her husband herself and when in the present, the little girl kept asking for the ring while the reincarnated witches were putting heavy stones on her body. The wife heard the baby crying and gave the little girl the ring and they gave her the baby back. Then the husband was found dead with the mark of the devil lying on the big rock at the bottom of the hill. Later, you see the mother with the baby when the baby was older and the cop tying the "special bow," but I couldn't decide whether it was her husband's spirit in the cop or what. The mother did have a look on her face about the tying of the bow. Obviously the cop in no way could have been her reincarnated husband because she was still young and the baby would have been all grown up so I feel that the cop may be possessed or at least have some of her dead husband's spirit in him along with his own soul.

reply

In the past, Maggie gave her daughter's life to save herself, and taht's why she was being haunted with visions from her witchy past and all that. Now, she gave her husband's life, and, like her daughter did, he reincarnated to make her pay.




He's here to kick ass and eat kebabs. And then kick more ass. http://tiny.cc/TuRambo

reply

[deleted]

And how could he have come back a couple of weeks later? Doesn't make sense.

reply

The husband did die with the teethmarks of Satan. Maggie gave his soul to the devil when she gave her ring away. Not sure why it was a different person but I thought he was watching Maggie to exact revenge like Jennifer and Mercy did.

http://AManAndAMouse.blogspot.com/

reply

A Great ending to a Great film. I saw it when it was first made, back in 1970, and have never forgotten it. Those were the days of QUALITY Television. And those ''Movies Of The Week'' were wonderful!. I probably saw most of them back then.Great memories of a better time...

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

[deleted]

Great list, raphaelcorleone! ITA that the 70s was an awesome decade for TV movies!! The ones they make today on Lifetime or what have you can't hold a candle to them.


reply

[deleted]

A lot of those films are on Youtube now. Look for the channels of "Chuck Dacon" or "TV Terrorland."

reply

Hmm, you're correct. When I was a little kid and first watched it, I believed the cop was the reincarnation of Ben and didn't think about the other stuff.

It might make more sense, if they ever remake it, to show Maggie meeting a strange little boy a few years later, who ties a bow just like Ben.

reply

I don't interpret it to be Ben. I believe he was a member of the coven and they were sending her a message. She had believed Jennifer and had believed the ordeal was over, but there was (more) hell to pay than that. They were letting her know they were going to keep an eye on her and her little boy, too. The message was you can't trust the Devil to do anything other than to deceive. Scary, powerful ending. She knows she'll never be safe and neither will her little boy.

reply

I interpret it as Ben, even though that makes the situation incoherent - I'll explain why.

One of the earliest scenes shows Hope Lange and her friend discussing reincarnation, with the friend emphasizing that she absolutely believes it happens.

Maggie Clary looks identical to Meg Clary and has her memories, though it's a passive thing.

The child Jennifer is likewise identical to the earlier Jennifer - Maggie sees her in her visions.

Jennifer is not a normal child, nor is she passively "reincarnated" as Maggie is. No, Jennifer is a girl on a mission, and her mission is to punish Maggie for what Meg did. Whether she's actually real is questionable, but the unrelated Ben is able to see her, so she's perhaps a temporary embodiment rather than a real person. At no point did we see any documentation of her existence (birth certificate, etc.) - all the information about her and Aunt Mercy came through the witchy doctor who was in on the whole thing.

The old man could see Jennifer, too, and, like Ben, he did not realize her menace.

Meg through Jenny and Aunt Mercy under the bus to save her own skin, you see. Unlike REAL witch trial situations, accusing others of being witches wouldn't get one off the hook. But this is a made-for-TV-movie, not reality.

Now that Jennifer has come back to punish her (Aunt Mercy seems only interested in assisting Jennifer in getting her revenge), she demands Maggie's husband Ben, who then dies. Maggie threw Ben under the bus the same way Meg had thrown Jennifer and Mercy under the bus, so of course the punishment cycle must continue.

Here's where it gets a little facile - the original Jennifer had to wait almost 300 YEARS for Meg (who apparently lived into her 70s) to die and be reincarnated so that Jennifer could revenge herself upon her. But Maggie's "punishment" is apparently going to begin right away!

I saw the horse cop as an embodiment of Ben - that's why he tied the ribbon in that distinctive way. The coven would not have known that. That was something specific to Maggie and Ben. You'll remember how, on New Year's Eve, when that guy who'd lent Maggie his apartment while he was out of town kissed Maggie on the mouth at midnight, she tolerated it for a while (why?) and then, when she turned to Ben, he aggressively kissed that guy's wife and turned into a surly toad. He apparently harbored quite a lot of bad feeling toward Maggie already, so the fact that she threw him under the bus would have made him furious, existentially speaking. That was one guy you did NOT want to piss off! So that's why he came back as, embodied as the horse cop, to watch her squirm. The movie wasn't going to leave on an ambiguous note, leaving us to wonder how many centuries it would be before Ben got his revenge. No, Ben was right there, right now, and Maggie would never know a moment's peace.

Also, remember how, when Jennifer tells him of Maggie staying at that guy's apartment (carefully leaving out the part of how he was out of town at the time), Ben goes all psycho, grabs a gun, and murders the guy? He was not a truly healthy, balanced person.

The part of the creepy little predator girl getting into a grown man's bed, kissing him and telling him she loves him, then demanding that the grown man's wife "give him" to her - that reverse-pedophile crap would NOT fly today. Not a CHANCE. The idea that it is the small child who is the predator and the innocent grown man her helpless target - please! Especially in the wake of the Woody Allen child abuse scandal(s).

reply

I saw this movie as a kid (probably not in 1970, as I was only 7 then and not allowed to watch scary movies). I have to admit that at the time, I thought that the cop who tied the bow on the baby carriage was someone with her husband's spirit who was going to watch over Maggie and the baby and protect them from the witches (I must have missed the mark on the husband's shoulder when he was found dead). But now I have to agree that he either was a malevolent form of Ben or one of the witches. Yikes! Would love to see this one again--it was scary in a way that didn't need blood and gore to make its point.

reply

I saw the horse cop as an embodiment of Ben - that's why he tied the ribbon in that distinctive way. The coven would not have known that. That was something specific to Maggie and Ben. You'll remember how, on New Year's Eve, when that guy who'd lent Maggie his apartment while he was out of town kissed Maggie on the mouth at midnight, she tolerated it for a while (why?) and then, when she turned to Ben, he aggressively kissed that guy's wife and turned into a surly toad. He apparently harbored quite a lot of bad feeling toward Maggie already, so the fact that she threw him under the bus would have made him furious, existentially speaking. That was one guy you did NOT want to piss off! So that's why he came back as, embodied as the horse cop, to watch her squirm. The movie wasn't going to leave on an ambiguous note, leaving us to wonder how many centuries it would be before Ben got his revenge. No, Ben was right there, right now, and Maggie would never know a moment's peace.
Sorry, but I just can't see this, even though you make a fairly good case. The flaw in this argument is the age of the cop vs, the age of the child. The child was still a baby and the cop was a grown man. According to my understanding of reincarnation, one has to die before the soul can pass on to the body of another. Ben had just died a short time (at most a year) before, and the cop was a grown man when he saw Maggie.

There is no way the cop could be a reincarnated Ben.

reply

I always assumed that the cop at the end was Satan, himself.

reply