Possible explanation: it was not a ghost story

It was all a dream. Or rather, an experiment. We see a little girl check into facility in 1976. I think the whole movie actually takes place in the 70s, and the experiences we see during the rest of the film are false and part of the experiment. That’s why their adult lives don’t make sense.


* About 30 years pass to get us to "present day" 2006. We see Jennifer teaching a psychology class, talking about experiences and about guilt. Then everyone leaves and her projector malfunctions(?) and starts flashing random weird images at her and she just stands there and accepts it instead of trying to fix it or hollering at someone to cut it out. In 1976 those sorts of flashing images could be used in a brain washing or psychological experiment. This was a clue.

* Their childhoods don’t make sense. They supposedly escaped the facility, and then what? Where did they go to high school? How did the lawyer and professor afford university education?

* Their adult lives don’t make sense. They have jobs but they don’t have lives. They are in their 30s but not one of them has children or family they have to contact before wandering off on a scavenger hunt. When they get trapped no one is worried about contacting family, friends, or their job.

* For adults they are blindingly incompetent. Grown men and women are unable to unable to move a wooden trunk containing a few trinkets and some old bones. Any 2 of them should have been able to move it easily, if they were adults. If they were actually children it could be too heavy.

*They react to finding the skeleton like children, not adults. They are afraid of getting in trouble. Not OMG a dead child we have to tell someone! No worries about the kid’s parents. No speculation that their friend who committed suicide might have done something terrible to that little girl.

* They are unbelievably incompetent dealing with Wayne’s broken leg. Just from watching TV adults should have known to remove his pant leg, clean the wound, wrap it, and immobilize it with a splint. They do none of that. Okay, cleaning it with beer in a filthy basement might not be the best idea, but even once they get into the facility with linens and running water they make no attempt to deal with the wound.

* Adults with time and tools should have been able to get past those metal window grates. You can pry those things apart or unscrew them if there is no one around to stop you. They don’t even try anything except hitting the grates.

* Beth (the artist) acts like a weird little girl the whole time, constantly going off on her own. An adult that neurotic wouldn’t have gone to the funeral in the first place. None of them act like competent adults in their 30s. The acting isn’t actually bad, if they are pretending to be children pretending to be adults.


At the end we’re back to a child in the facility. I think this wasn’t a flashback, that was the present. Their “adult” stories were false experiences, part of the experiment designed to shape their behavior.