MovieChat Forums > Spectres (2004) Discussion > Speculation about the ending (spoilers)

Speculation about the ending (spoilers)

posted 19 years ago by sparkling_satine
6 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching the movie, and I'm confused about what happens at the very end. They never show the daughter actually coming back to life, her bed looks unslept in, and she suggests to her mom that they skip breakfast and walk down the creek to the beach. I've come up with two theories:

1. The daughter was successfully revived, and she and her mom are carrying on their life as usual. She made her bed in the morning to make her mom happy, and she's still pretty shaken up and isn't hungry for breakfast.

2. The daughter never came back to life, and the mom was so devastated that she killed herself. Thus, both of them are now ghosts. However, throughout the rest of the movie only one suicide victim could appear at a time since they were "all one." Of course, there could always be the possibility that the different individuals can interact within the one being/ghost/spirit and are only forced to appear one at a time when communicating with outsiders.

3. Daughter died, mom killed herself, and both are now in heaven, and their slice of heaven just happens to be modeled after their vacation home. The loophole here is that the other suicide victims stayed on earth.

I don't think only the daughter is a ghost because she was able to hug her mom and the other ghosts went through people.

If anyone else has any other explanations, I'd love to hear them.

[–] Lost_Souls_Star 19 years ago

I agree with theory #1...
I think that since the mother made incredible efforts to learn to trust her daughter and actually involve herself with her towards the end of the film, that ending shows that the daughter has a new-found respect for her mother and wants to show her appreciation be spending "quality time" with her.

Theories #2 & #3 are, in my opinion, way off-base. Even if the mother joined the daughter in death, your assumption that they can't both be around at the same time is flawed. Those other "spectres" were not merely suicide victims that haunted the house, you missed the original plotline of the movie by thinking that. They were all one soul that were re-born into the world only to end up making the same mistake. The young man, the housewife, the old piano player, even the daughter...they were the same person, just reincarnated at different times, after commiting suicide again and again. The reason they were able to manifest themselves were because the soul of the Asian woman (who died in the car-crash) hijacked the daughters body. Because she did not belong there, the girl's original soul kept appearing in the form of it's past lives trying to convey their individual messages. I don't know the order (which life was first) but I'll give you an example: The housewife kills herself, then she gets reincarnated as the boy, who grows up, and at some point as a young man, he kills himself, since that soul did not learn it's cosmic lessons or whatever, it then gets reincarnated again, possibly as the old piano playing man. We know he at some point (when he's old) killed himself, and then becomes reincarnated as the daughter for which the movie follows. The reason why there is a sense of urgency in the pleading with the Asian woman's soul is that they say that they need to finally put things right by not making that same mistake (suicide) again, and that she must leave the daughter's body and give the current version of their soul (the daughter) her 2nd chance or they suffer yet another reincarnation and so on and so on....

Anyways, that was the mistake made in your assesments that you are treating the spectres and the girl as different beings when they are one and the same. Sorry for this novel, but it was the only way to try to explain it.

[–] frockin_boots 18 years ago

But wait wait wait... didn't the daughter say she didn't like be called sweetheart, and the mom says there must've been a lot she didn't know about her *before*. This makes me think the daughter died and now the mom sees her as a ghost. Am I off base? I only caught the last 40 minutes of the movie, so perhaps I really am way off.

[–] TimBoHannon 17 years ago

If there is absolutely no evidence to show that something happened, the filmmakers did not intend for the audience to believe it. The not showing of the actual event and making the audience guess for awhile before making the truth clear is not an uncommon storytelling technique.

I finished watching the film twenty minutes ago, and there is absolutely no suggestion that the revival was not successful. Therefore, theory one is what the writer and director intended.

Assume I know what I'm saying.

[–] lilredmama1980 17 years ago

The old man came first. Then the housewife. Then the boy. In the part where "Kelly" meets the old man and then he changes into "Sean" he tells her that the old man lived 200 years ago and he only lived 40 years ago. But, there was a part where "Susan", the housewife, tells Kelly how Sean killed himself and she should of been able to help him.

[–] Starlani-TranceTroi 16 years ago

The ending is probably meant to be a few days (or weeks) later, when Kelly's feeling more or less back to normal. It's a bit like how near the beginning they skip from Laura Lee crying after Kelly's initial suicide attempt (cutting her wrists), to Kelly [well, what appares to be Kelly but is technically Renee Hansen in Kelly's body] coming home (presumably from hospital, though this isn't explicitly stated) to find that her mum finished the jigsaw puzzle without her.

[–] 16 years ago

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