Wtf does the ending mean? (spoilers)

great explanations, but one thing I'm still wondering: how/why was the girl in the water pulled back in like that?


Jeg driter i hvem faren din er, slutt å gå på vannet, du skremmer fisken!

I disagree with the woman being Gunnar's daughter. They discovered the body - he would have shown some signs of distress.

They never really explained what they were doing there in the first place. It was something to do with a TV show, but they never said what the TV show was about or why it would be in that spot.

I thought the ending was wrapped up quite well. I think the gatekeeper definitely killed the woman, since if her husband hadn't gone insane beforehand then that would have sent him over the edge. At the ending, they said she had probably drowned right in front of him though, I didn't understand why he wouldn't have gone after the gatekeeper instead of the group in the woods, since if he'd seen her die he would've tried to stop it/avenge her death afterwards.
I quite like the way there are a lot of loose ends, it's better than a lot of horror movies that give you all the answers, since it leaves you wanting more, makes you think about it long after to form some sort of explanation. Everyone can interpret it differently, since the director is the only one with the real answers. Whether he did this intentionally or not though is a mystery.

Gunnar knows something he's not telling the others, i think thats the strange behavior. and how do you explain the tent rising in such a ghostlike move, with the poles tightening and all, without there beeing a ghost involved?

Oh my, old topic, but anyways... the whistling sounds aren't what I would specify as 'sound effects'. It's indicating that the guy that was opening the gate also has a hand in all this. He don't actually whistle when he opens the gate, but somehow Lasse managed to connect the whistling to that guy.
Also, when it comes to the confusing ending: That's what's horror films are all about. I think everything has a logical explanation, everything seems rather real, and I don't believe in this ghosts theory... that the lake didn't froze is not enough for me. Dang, I gotta see this film again... such a long time ago :)

"The whistling is of course a sound effect."

Have you seen the movie with commentaries on? During the scene at the end where they see the reflections and Kris is having a flashback about the gatekeeper, the director himself says that the point of the whistling was to make the audience realise that the gatekeeper was the one doing the whistling throughout the entire film. (He actually said that it was put in so the smarter parts of the audience would realise that, and then added that he thought it might have been too vague for people to catch on to) They also said that they discover that "matters are actually not as easy as the police thinks", and Marko says that it was about getting a feeling that "it's not over"

"The only thing i wonder of, is Gunnars behaviour. Why is he like that? Ahh, i get so mad at him. Bringing them to this strange place, knowing that theres something scary going on - and not letting them out of the woods when everything gets creepy and *beep*"

Here's my take on Gunnar; this might be a bit long, bear with me:

Quite obviously Gunnar knows that there's something about the pond. He has himself been warned about the pond when he was a child. Note, however, that this does not keep Gunnar himself from going up to the pond, he is up there on his own initiative when he sees the 2 boys messing about with the camp. He also tells them the story about the german plane crash and the pond never getting frozen in winter. He builds suspension by allowing the team to play the tape where his grandpa warns him about the pond, and then grabs it from them just when they have heard enough.

I think he wants to use this pond as a harmless "scare tactic" against the team. He's very familiar with the cabin and the pond, he has probably been frightened himself as a child, but as far as he knows, noone has ever been hurt by it. He probably just thinks that it's an old ghost story, nothing more than superstition(why else would he bring the team, and himself up there?), and wants to use this to his advantage to add a bit of fright to the team building. The idea being that fright would bring the team closer together - he obviously believes that physical exhaustion and other hardships(no smokes, no phones etc) will, and fright has an even more powerful effect, so that makes sense.

He might also believe that the frightening aspects of the ghost story might portray him as the brave leader to the rest of the team - since he is already familiar with the pond, and considers it a scary but harmless story, putting on a brave face will not be difficult. Lasse even hints at this, by confronting him with his "macho facade", and claiming it's all a show-off to impress the girls.(Especially Elin, perhaps) The director claims on the voiceovers that Gunnar is the one who scares Per with the gas mask early on - this supports the "scare tactics" theory.

And this will fit quite nicely with the theory that says Gunnar is attracted to Elin - anyone familiar with the effects watching a scary movie with your "afraid of the dark" girlfriend will have...? He might consider this a nice bonus. This might also explain why Elin hesitates to answer when asked why she has been putting up with Gunnar for so long - she might have difficulties finding the answer. As it is, it turns out Elin is not "afraid of the dark", and this might be an extra frustration for Gunnar. By the time Elin tells him they will never work together again, he has already realised this, and you can see the resigned look in his face.

When they find the dead body, things change. I don't think Gunnar was aware of the body, as he does seemed shocked when the boys pull it up for him to see. He also has no clear-cut plan to keep the team going after they find the body, which indicates that he was not prepared for that situation. When Elin learns about this, he also says that deciding to stay was a "difficult decision to make". I think this definitely explain most of his strange behaviour later, like him chopping away at the tree and dealing out weird "punishments". The dead body in the lake is bothering him, maybe because it is splitting up the team instead of welding them together, maybe because it is the first real indication he really has that there might actually be something real about the ghost story, maybe both. He realise he may have put the team in real danger, which was never his intention.

The reason that he chooses to stay is most likely that he is determined not to abandon his work. The movie pictures him as a very determined man, and he is not prepared to give up all the effort he has put into the team building because of a dead body. Career and work is obviously the most important things in his life, and he is quite prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of his work. He has probably also convinced himself that the dead body is actually just a result of an accident and unrelated to the ghost stories.

By the time things really start to get dangerous, he might be thinking that the safest thing is probably just to stick together by the cabin that he has known as a safe place all his life instead of braving the woods that now seem dark and dangerous. By now he has effectively lost control of the team anyway, so there's not much he can do. You can tell by the expression in his face when Sara starts to cry that he doesn't like upsetting her. And note the expression in his face when he uncovers Pers dead body - he is genuinely shocked, and you can tell that he now realises that his plan has gone horribly wrong. He was never intending to hurt anyone in the team, but the situation is rapidly spinning out of his control, which is causing him to "lose it". Pers death causes a very important shift in his mentality; he can no longer convince himself that the area is harmless. He now effectively resigns as a leader of the group, and I think the effect this has on his mind is what causes his actions by the very end of the movie.

This might be a stretch, but in the end, I believe he finally "sacrifices" himself to save the rest of the team. You can see him casting a final glance on the team before he stumbles straight into the armed german and gets shot, drowning the german with his body. He has accepted the blame for Pers death, and is determined to not cause any more deaths in his team, even if it means his own.