Ok, I just found out a flaw in a movie. The doctor never met Harlan's son before. But it's just impossible because in dreams or delusions you will never see new things. Everything you see must be already in your brain, meaning things that you already know.
sharewell I've found a flaw in your flaw....
adrian isn't harlans son.
plus...
if harlan had a son surely sam would know about it. this is a moot point of course....
because....
why can't you see new things in dreams and delusions anyway? I had a vivid dream of beyonce knowles giving me a lapadance last night but I've never seen it before. unfortunately.
=================================
"adrian isn't harlans son. "
ok, it's my bad. English is not my first language. But it doesn't affect my point anyways. Don't be so picky.
=================================
"if harlan had a son surely sam would know about it. this is a moot point of course.... "
Sam would know harlan's son then she'd probably reconize him as soon as he entered the house, thus won't make harlan's plan work.
=================================
"why can't you see new things in dreams and delusions anyway? I had a vivid dream of beyonce knowles giving me a lapadance last night but I've never seen it before. unfortunately. "
It's because you knew what a lapdance is, on TV, from what your friends told you, etc. And you did picture yourself being given a lapdance before. Other wise you can't dream about it.
quote: "Dreaming is the subjective experience of remembered and imaginary images, sounds/voices, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, with the dreamer usually not being able to influence the experience."
However, i don't know if it works the same way as in this case. But IMO it can also be applied for this case.
=================================
"adrian isn't harlans son. "
ok, it's my bad. English is not my first language. But it doesn't affect my point anyways. Don't be so picky.
--Of course it does. Your whole point is that sam had never seen harlans son so couldn't imagine him. Sam didn't imagine harlans son at all so the point is completely redundant. On the basis that the flaw was based on adrian being harlans son I wouldn't consider it "picky" to point out your misunderstanding of their relationship. And your english is very good by the way. I'm sure you do a better job in english than I would in your first language :)
=================================
"if harlan had a son surely sam would know about it. this is a moot point of course.... "
Sam would know harlan's son then she'd probably reconize him as soon as he entered the house, thus won't make harlan's plan work.
--I said "know about". I didn't mean she would have met him. Again though, makes no odds as it wasn't harlans son.
=================================
"why can't you see new things in dreams and delusions anyway? I had a vivid dream of beyonce knowles giving me a lapadance last night but I've never seen it before. unfortunately. "
It's because you knew what a lapdance is, on TV, from what your friends told you, etc. And you did picture yourself being given a lapdance before. Other wise you can't dream about it.
quote: "Dreaming is the subjective experience of remembered and imaginary images, sounds/voices, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, with the dreamer usually not being able to influence the experience."
However, i don't know if it works the same way as in this case. But IMO it can also be applied for this case.
--Your chosen quote says dreams are made of "remembered and imaginary images". Notice the imaginary part? It means that you don't have to experience something to dream about it. Thanks for proving my point ;)
By your logic, you can't think up anything in a dream, which is extremely untrue. I have dreamed I died before in a seizure and it is definitely not one I have just seen on TV or heard about. Yes, I'm epileptic, but I haven't had a grand mal in over two years. I dreamed about my fiance getting in a car accident where a semi truck hit in the driver's side and killed him - and two weeks later he did have an accident, but luckily the car spinned one last time and it hit the passenger side, saving him. Plus a lot of inventions have been though up in dreams. I'm not talking as an expert, but I do have a few hallucinations from my epilepsy - and it's very possible to hallucinate about something you haven't seen or maybe have and not recognize it during that time since your brain is NOT work properly.
shareWhos is that quote attributed to please? I'm guessing it's a theory because we just don't know enough about dreaming to be able to state much as absolute fact. The only reason I pitched in was because I, unbeknownst to me, suffered from sleep apnoea for years and didn't get past dream-state sleep ever. I can tell you with no question at all that you do not have to have had experience of a scenario or person to dream about it.
shareIt wasn't Harlan's son, it was his victim. As they played the "Phone" game she told Harlan, "You kidnapped and raped a teenage boy." Adrian, in the exterior scene after his death, said, "Harlan spread my pieces around his backyard. Do you think a nail is going to kill me?" Then Harlan appeared and said, "We all carry our ghosts with us. He's mine, I'm yours."
Adrian was Harlan's victim, Harlan was Samantha's victim. It was likely Samantha knew the name of Harlan's victim, although obviously not what he looked like since she did not recognize him. Applying an image to a name is no great feat of mental gymnastics.
Even without what I've said above, this wasn't a dream, it was a fantasy she allowed herself to justify what she was doing or did (im not sure at what point the fantasy really started). The movie tells us she has a history of going to great lengths to justify sadistic or amoral actions through Harlan's story. She experimented on him because he was a "monster." We all do it, we are all good in our own eyes and if we do something that doesn't connect with that self-image we look for exterior justifications. In this case, she couldnt connect with killing her husband and sister, so she conjured Harlan and Adrian to create the circumstances leading to her killing.
my two cents.
Samantha never killed her husband or her sister; it doesn't take a great feat of mental gymnastics to get that. She locked herself into the bathroom, and took an overdose of the medication she was on (or the danger of the drug finally came to fruition) and she passed out or died. Her husband and sister were knocking on the door, just like in the movie earlier, except she is on the floor and dead or dying.
The movie is about her taking responsibility for what she did to HARLAN, not to anyone else. The images of her husband and sister being killed were either wishful thinking, because she doesn't want to die, or they were simply mirror images of the truth... she is dying, not them. Her husband didn't *beep* her sister, she didn't catch them, and she didn't kill them. She came up, they greeted her, she went into the bathroom, injected herself with the stuff she's taking to lessen the tumor, hallucinated all the bulk of the movie, passed out on the floor and her sister and husband are banging on the door to try to get her out. The end. Most probably she is in a coma, which is why Harlan says, "When I was in a coma, I was aware. They don't have machines that can detect it, but for a whole damn year I was aware." She is most probably in a coma, imagining all the stuff with her husband and sister and Harlan. The knocking at the end is probably her mind trying to come awake, but she can't, yet she is aware.
As far as dreams not being able to include that which you have never done, seen or heard, that is patently absurd. I have been buried in my dream, next to my mother, while I was a cartoon and I flew out of my own grave, with real wings and a tail like a snake. Later, I shot popsicles at my childhood home to kill the Cigarette Man who was strangling my father. Now, I've never done any of that, seen any of that, or heard any of that. Dreams manipulate anything your mind can imagine, which of course must have some basis in your conscious awareness or perception — either in present or past — but they DO NOT need to be limited to that which you have empirically experienced *specifically*, i.e., you can only manipulate that which you can imagine, and imagination has it's foundation in experience and perception, but it is not limited to actual events, either seen, heard or realized. 'Nuff said.
"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus
thanks to demiurgearchon and bladerunner, i couldn't understand the movie until reading your posts,haha. But i still don't understand why Sam is hallucinating her husband's love affair with her sister when they do not? (or do they and sam knows somehow?) and if all were dreaming, why did she cut off her little finger in the bathroom?
Thanks
I think bladerunner's not right. In the ending when she falls on the floor she has her finger cut and blood all over her.
I think she killed them, then went hallucinating, and all the movie was the projection of her trying to justify her (on many levels like the situation with her marriage, the patient-doctor relation, etc.), but who comes knocking in the end? Who knows, maybe it's a kind of poetic and provocative way her own mind is trying to get free of her dull life.
Remember the scene, near the beginning, when she goes into the bathroom? (Can't remember the reason she went in there to begin with. At this point she could've assumed David was banging Melody).
She drops the vial, it breaks, she cuts her finger... David and Melody begin tugging at the door, from outisde. She injects herself, at this point.
BAM (begin dream, hallucination, etc.) -- she falls into a coma.
Everything we see after that is what Harlan describes to her, later, as still being aware -- while comatose.
CUT TO:
The end, we see a repeat of the same scene. She's in the bathroom, she injects herself, drops the vial. But, what we didn't SEE before: she falls to the gorund, comatose...
And, from outside, we hear David and Melody tugging at the door.
My 2 cents...
English isn't my first language either ;)
but after seeing the movie and reading the posts i must say that lbk97 is in my "Dutch" opinion the one who knows what he's talking about..
A:she felt like there was something going on between her husband and her sister,
that's what we could see when she looked out the window
B: she went into the bathroom because she told that the tumor was growing and got in a fight with her sister (this is also when David went to Melody instead of trying to comfort Sam)
C:when she dropped the vail it wasn't half an hour before she got out the bathroom, she never did get out, as seen in the last scene.
it's just that when she fell into a coma. in which you are aware according to Harlan Pyne, in her mind she stood up and did all the terrible things as you can see all the way throughout the last scene.
"it was all about getting even with her husband and sister for what they did to sam supposedly "
the irony is, that first in her mind (read while beeing concious) she had the feeling that her sister and husband where getting somewhat way to intimate or at least to close, and she ends up killing them in her thoughts when she is in coma..as in unconcious...
only th part of killing the dog is puzzling still though..
concious: the dogs jumpes up to people as sort of an alarm
unconcious: the dog just lays there when she comes in, so what's the point in killing him??
allready part off getting even with david???
Dutchy too...
So the majority of this board seems to think that pretty much everything between the two bathroom scenes is fake (maybe apart from the killing, but you don't know..)
Including Harlan, the doctors patient who is in her head, as well as Harlans (thought to be) victim.
If the rest was real, who was the handmark on the window from???
How's that for a braincracker eh?
[deleted]
Not Dutch, Swede...
What about when sam's in the bathroom at the diner. She hears someone in one of the booths and bends down seeing a pair of brown shoes. Later, in the cabin, I saw that David was wearing the same pair of shoes. What does that mean?
And the mice at the attic, could it have been the tumor?
I liked the movie but the acting was not very good.
"So the majority of this board seems to think that pretty much everything between the two bathroom scenes is fake"
If that's true, then "whoever made this movie" missed their point... because if so there's an hallucination inside her hallucination (2 hallucinations and 1 reality... huh?).
You're forgetting that Sam didn't kill them when Harlan told her to, she kill them when she arrived home... So if this is a part of her hallucination, she's hallucinating inside her hallucination with Harlan... and that just doesn´t make sense!
So, i guess she DID kill them and them committed suicide... makes a lot more sense. And the "nob" scene at the scene? Perhaps the director just wanted to say she really never leave the bathroom or perhaps she's just hallucinating again! (about her repent or fear....)
Only one thing really puzzles me. If she did kill them when she arrived, then she didn't see her husband hurt his finger, however she "sees" him getting his hand cleaned in the kitchen... Perhaps the flaw you're looking for?
"You're forgetting that Sam didn't kill them when Harlan told her to, she kill them when she arrived home... So if this is a part of her hallucination, she's hallucinating inside her hallucination with Harlan... and that just doesn´t make sense! "
Well, you are right but the hallucination doesn't have to follow the order of the real life.
May be she was hallucinating one thing then another.
Remember, he said he hurt his finger from an excuse of writer's cramp when she walked in...
share
"Remember, he said he hurt his finger from an excuse of writer's cramp when she walked in..."
Precisely! The way I see it, that's a a part of her hallucination. It never happened! She arrived at the house and immediately kill them so she never saw him hurt his finger. How could she hallucinate about that?
Perhaps she noticed that particular wound after the attack (very unlikely, an axe...) but that's just so unnecessary (picky) from the wirter/director's point of view.
Almost so unnecessary as making a movie with two hallucinations happening so closely on the same subject... :)
I still stand by the fact I believe she killed them. From the looks of where she swung the axe, she seemed to have hit him the back or so - so it's possible she seen his hurt finger after.
share"And the mice at the attic, could it have been the tumor? "
That's obvious.
As the Costume Designer of that film I can tell you that David WAS NOT wearing the shoes seen in the bathroom (David's have no laces). The boots seen under the bathroom stall belong to Harlan.
shareGood movie. The alt. ending on the DVD should have stayed in.
shareI cannot believe that. The actual Costume Designer interefered into the review.
Thanks for the comment.
The cutting off of her finger is an attempt to wake herself from the hallucinations she is having. Remember she is a psychologist, she deals with people with mental issues constantly...She was obviously intelligent enought to realise that the pictures she was seeing were probably not real. I do not remember the exact words that Harlan says to her, but it references attempting to wake up...
So, to recap, (as blade and others have mentioned ..) she did not kill anyone, the dog never died, and she cut off her pinky finger in an attempt to wake from the delusion.
Now on a speculative note, the delusions may have occured about whom they occured because of finding things like the condom in the shaving kit. Regardless, this was an EXCELLENT MOVIE. I will be watching it a few more times, and hopefully getting more people to watch it.
Uhm.. I'm not sure at all..
If she just commit suicide-overdose after "fighting" with David and Melodie, why does she have blood on her face?
I don't think she was cutting her pinky finger in the bathroom and then shoot herself..
I think David and her sister had an affair, she discovered it, freaked out, killed them and hallucinated about Harlans and all that jazz after cutting her finger, realizing she was going crazy etc etc.. The door at the end might be her mind trying to wake up from the coma..
Otherwise, she just freaks out from the beginning, didn't kill anyone and get an overdose in the bathroom, David and Melodie are knocking on the door but - if that is real, why the blood on her face? We don't see the cutter in the bathroom and I really don't think she did that in the kitchen - after the fight and before locking herself in the bathroom...
I read it that she did kill her husband and sister as a result of the effects of the drug she was taking to combat the tumour. She cuts off her finger because she is delusional and then ups the dose to fight this. That leads to her falling into a coma and not dying. It is linked with what Harlan says earlier about how he was still aware when in the coma. Liek Harlan she too is still aware of all the noises etc.. That means we are all left to contemplate what it is like for her 'trapped' in this state, aware but unable to respond. Always a nice way to end a film.
I liked it a lot and thought the acting was pretty good!
Just watched the film. My first impression was like catfink-l. After reading this thread I am now not so sure...
I started to watch it a second time and noticed her first conversation [within the movie] with her husband is on the phone and then (halluciation?) he is in the office, in person. The conversation ends and she hangs up the phone. We see her injection site and the "lipstick" in the syringe box. The only point I am making is the hallucinations are everpresent rather than a clearly defined reality and similarly delineated psychosis.
Whatever that means...
Well my breakdown of the bathroom scenes.
First scene Bathroom:
Gets out lipstick of box, shakey as hell puts it back in box, Scratches rash, Finds she is holding a bottle of perfume, Drops bottle, Cuts finger (pinky left hand),wraps it in a blue and white hanky or rag.
Final scene bathroom:
Looks into mirror face splashed with blood, starts to cry (realises what she has done ?), Left hand is bandaged and little pinky is missing, Gets out syringe from box (identical to the lipstick box), Injects herself in side, Close up of bottle of Demenepril, drops bottle, Doornob turns, door shakes. She is lying on floor, eyes open, slightly flickering, hearing noises, getting louder....
Most notable things.
When She first comes inside the house and hears Husband say "O goddam it , O f###.
Says he jammed his thumb cutting wood.
Later on flashback of arrival scene,
Comes in the door exactly the same.
The Husband and sister are having rumpy pumpy on couch, Husband say's "O Goddam thats great, O f###,
Sister says, "what is it ?"
Husband " I just jammed my thumb !!"
Then goes on to watch then do a bit of chopping :)
Scene on couch, She says "I shouldent have gone in, I should have left !!"
Also so the rapist asks her when she upped the dosage, she replied this morning!
when she saw the catscan results.
I think the hallucinations start from the start of the film. Well when she ups the dosage.
I agree with Catfink,
Good film, Good acting. Slightly confusing.
well it IS obvious that the illusions start from de begining of the movie. the scene with her husband at the tel is a proof.
also every time she picks her "lipstick" it is in reality the drug she is using to fight the cancer, and when she scratches she is actually injecting the dosage...
now when she saw that the tumor was growing (gegining of the movie) she upped the dosage..and so the illusions start.
now when she arrives at the house not all we see is real. the handprint on the window is a dellusion if you look well the print is not there when she first looks and see her husband and sister, when she looks again (a sec after) the print is there. but we see that she is clearly getting suspicious towards her husband and sister and THAT is true. when she explains the tumor is growing her husband doesen't stand on her side and so she goes to the bathroom and THERE all starts breaking up. she takes out the lipstick wich is the drug...and right there her time perseption stops and so she allucinate for half an hour.
when she looks her hand and see the perfume it's in fact the drug vial. the moment she cuts herself with the perfume is an allucination, in reallity she cut her finger, but since she's dellusion she dreams something else and so she gets out the bathroom and then dreams of all what appens next.when she hears they are calling her she dreams she gets up and the story continues but like every dream the following events doesen't make much sense. all seems getting mixed, her patient, her cancer, her husband etc... what follows next is her first dream she must really think she's awake and so she dreams she REALLY founds her husband with her sister. the reason why the dog dies it's because she thinks taht the dog alarmed them and so she could not bust them...
she cuts her finger because she's trying to wake up. she's a smart person she knows something is wrong about her. at that moment she wakes up and look herself in the miror and she realises the truth, she administrates a second dosage and that's where she goes in coma. now if you pay attention at that point where she is in the ground and the camera is shooting her face we hear what she hears...and the rat noise is very hight, as in the café where she doesen't hear people talking but she can hear every noise...that's why she doesen't hear her husband calling...BUT if you pay more attention you'll hear like voices but not clearly...
this could be one explanation
i gave my best shot on this.
the theory that she really kills her husband etc...i don't buy it.
That wasn't Harlan's son, that was the teen he kidnapped, raped and killed to get put in the hospital. Remember when the kid came back after she killed him, Harlan said, "He's my ghost, just like I'm yours"
share^^Great catch guy, read the rest of the posts..
Anyway, I am pretty confused now about the end. It looks like her finger was missing under the bandage, as if it was from her cutting it off and not the cut from the glass at the beginning. Going to have to watch this damn thing again.
"Your chosen quote says dreams are made of "remembered and imaginary images". Notice the imaginary part? It means that you don't have to experience something to dream about it. Thanks for proving my point ;) "
Sorry, he did NOT prove your point. What he proved is that you did not fully think his post through before you responded. His quote:
"Everything you see must be already in your brain, meaning things that you already know."
Obviosly, you can dream imagined things. All dreams are imaginary even if based upon reality to a certain degree. However, since what you are dreaming is in fact not happening in reality ... hence the "imaginary" comes in.
You can dream you had a lapdance with Beyonce. However, if you had never seen a picture of Beyonce, then you could still have the dream ... only it wouldn't be Beyonce but another woman you have seen or a completely made-up woman. It isn't possible to dream of Beyonce if you had never seen what she looks like.
That is quanlvn's point. Though he/she is incorrect of the role the young man played, he is correct in knowing the woman could not have dreamed of a young man she had never met and then later that same young man show up at her house. Unless she is psychic.
I know that if I had a dream of a man I never met and then my husband brought a guy from work to dinner and he looked just like the guy I made up in my dreams ... Uh-oh! ;-)
The boy was the teenager Harlan had killed - that would forever be in his file somewhere and as his doctor, she would have had full access to it. She just might not have remembered at first - not everyone would.
shareShe was seeing things as soon as she upped the dosage. Including her husband in her office and the truck behind her when she was off the side of the road. She walked in the cabin, caught her husband and sis having sex and she killed them. She walked over to the dog and shot him. Then she cut off her finger trying to wake up from what she hoped was a dream. Then she went into the bathroom took another dose and fell into a coma. The knocking on the door might have been the cops or just another dilusion. It was a good movie but the writer should have tied up the ending better so that it wouldn't be so confusing.
shareYes! SHE DID KILL THEM... Finally the board's with me... lol
shareYou know what, I think that just might be the plot - LOL - I've been guessing all around it since I knew she had killed her husband and sister.
shareharlan and the other guy ar her own guilt he caught her hustand and her sister she kills them than he realizes what she hass done is wrong and he goes to kill herself but he fails in to somekind of sleep and she creates some kind of explication so she can escape from her own guilt.
share