Reason why this great film was not a bigger success 'SPOILER ALERT!'

I'm actually surprised that there is so much grousing on this board about the ending. I didn't think there was anything ambiguous about the movie at all.

First, there were plenty of other people who spoke about his abuse and about the house's being haunted, and there were others who experienced effects of the ghost in the house (the psychic at the dinner table; his friend's brief "possession" when he told him it was upstairs behind the crucifix) and that can't be explained away by saying that he is insane. The only person who says that the house is not haunted is the skeptical psychiatrist (and doctors/scientists are well-known for skepticism, so that seems logical enough); everybody else tells him that he shouldn't be there.

So, there was nothing (at least to me) that seemed to indicate that the audience was to interpret the main character as making up any of it. The tension was therefore built between what the audience knows is actuality and what he, himself, is denying.

As for the ending, I didn't see any ambiguity at all (until I read these and other posts on this board!)-- it seemed obvious to me that he was dead at the end. Hence the ghostly hand of his mother could turn his head toward the doorway so that he could see the two of them at their picnic, finally, forgiving each other and healing. Not only is the ghostly hand able to touch him and make him look (and therefore he's dead), but he *looks* dead.

I am having a hard time thinking that the makers of this movie thought they were making an ambiguous ending, myself.

I enjoyed the film for what it offers, and it seems to me even that maybe the mother's malevolence was itself transformed or redeemed by his death (eye for an eye, maybe?) as well as his own healing brought about by his reunion with his now-apologetic and loving mother. I mean, it is clear that the house had been malevolent towards everybody before the son came back. The psychic told him that the house didn't mean to "hurt" him, because if it did it would have already done that. But killing him was his only route to freedom and healing; it wasn't hurting him.

His death at the end, and his healing on the other side, also was preventing him from abusing his own son, of which there were a few hints in the movie-- not that he had done anything as horrid as had been done to him but that he was insensitive to the boy's feelings. It seemed like his own overbearing manner, at least, was hurting his son, like when his arguing with his wife caused the boy to scream, etc.

Sorry-- I don't mean to be insulting toward those who found the ending ambiguous or those who felt he is still alive at the end or was crazy throughout. It just seems to me that the evidence is demonstrable that the directors/writers weren't trying to make an ambiguous movie. Just my opinion.