We learn at the end that Cassi was one of the Gatherers who have been sentenced through time to witness terrible events. At the beginning of the film we see her arrive to the town with a sort of secret reason for being there (she is gathering like the others). After the car crash, most of her memory was erased and she was left to unravel the puzzle pieces on her own. Since she forgot her intial purpose for being in the town (to watch the deaths), she began to take action against the murderer as she put the pieces together, thinking like any other person, that she must stop it. After the crash, she did not know she was a Gatherer, something the other Gatherers tried to remind her of, hence Dan. In the end, Cassi's soul was freed because she prevented most of the tragedy. Big question though: If all these Gatherer's have to do to be freed is to prevent a tragedy, why do they not do this? Why do they work so hard, as Dan said, to make sure everything is in its place for the tragedy to occur? Its them working against themselves. Another big question is what are these beings? Are the souls or are they immortal humans that wander the globe witnessing tragedies? I ask this because, can a soul be affected by getting run over as Cassi was. We learn she was hardly injured, but the memory loss is a quality humans lose, not souls or other non-human beings. In my mind, its just flawed logic and one of the reasons, among many, this film did not work for me.
As far as the whole Michael being on Argyle's hit list, I have no clue. The closest I could come to an answer was that Michael, a young boy who now lives in the place Argyle was once abused, reminded Argyle of himself. By killing Michael, maybe he thought he was doing Michael a favor or maybe trying to silence all possible connections to his traumatic past. Weak connection IMO, but that is all I could come up with.
Anyway, although I really didn't like this movie, for some reason I feel compelled to comment on it.
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mtczajka
17 years ago
I came here to IMDB to get the answer to why Freddie wanted to kill Michael, at least I don't feel stupid for not understanding! The only thing I could come up with was what cpc said - Freddy thought he was protecting Michael. But overall, I liked the movie.
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ruudos
17 years ago
I don understand that either, but there's more I don't understand.
Can normal see people see "The Gathering"? It doesn't seem so in the movie. Cassi recognises the statue's faces (these people live here in this town), while Michael's father haven't seen that. But if normal people can't see "The Gathering", how come that they can see Cassi?
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meh77
17 years ago
As far as I undertand, everybody can see them. How I know that?. Simple, The Gathering has been seen in many tragical episodes of human history, and it's documented, wich we see when priest analize the videos. Apologize my grammar, I'm a non english speaker.
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rubixgirl
16 years ago
Christina Ricci's character says that Argyle wants to wipe out his past and since Michael reminds Argyle of himself back in the days of abuse, he wants to wipe him out too, as closure. That being said it is not a logical train of thought but after the years of abuse, I don't think Argyle was thinking logically.
I think also that family moving into the house where he was abused probably triggered him to get obsessive about it again.
~~Heather it's your turn. No, Heather it's Heather's turn. Heather???~~
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LadyFel
16 years ago
Everyone can 'see' the gatherers, it's just that they don't know why they are there, they could just be passers by who are in town for a few days, etc...So they'd be less likely to pay attention to them. Simon doesn't realise what's going on because Lime Court where he lives is on the outskirts of the town, and he spends most of his time in the movie working at the church, so he'd be pretty unaware of any newcomers.
As for the souls themselves, whatever they are, I didn't get the impression that any of them except Dan were actively working towards getting things to the point where a tragedy could happen, I mean really all they did was stand around and follow Cassie around - they didn't try to stop her or anything (again, except Dan, and I think that's because he couldn't bear to lose her)...
And maybe the whole second chance thing ties in with the memory loss - if they're apathetic to their own fate and spending eternity watching tragedies happen, every so often one is given a chance - goes through some kind of physical trauma which 'jolts him' back into humanity for a certain period - if he does something to try and save someone, he's saved (like Cassie), if not, he just goes back to being one of the watchers until his next chance.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried
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araye
15 years ago
Yes. I agree. Fred wanted to kill Michael because it reminded him of himself as a child and he was destroying all painful memories of his past.
I also believe that they are immortal humans. With all of the emotions and vulnerabilities of humans. Apart from the fact that they cannot die.
Cassie was given a second chance by the accident. I dont think any of the other gatherers can intervene and save someone and be "freed". Because it would be a calculated selfish action and won't redeem them. It has to be a selfless act. maybe that's why she lost her memory.... It was her second chance.
I think Dan was trying to convince her to not interfere because he loved her. I'm not sure if I think that he didn't want her to help and be freed, or if he really didn't believe there was any other possibility. I dunno.
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