Yeah, I was upset by the change it took. Several reasons:
The child is shown hanging with people (in the photo), in a nice dress and everything, and then suddenly, she goes feral? That's not how it works. Feral children are raised from a very early age in the woods, and I'm talking before or during speech development. Seeing a murder might mess you up a bit and/or cause you to go on a murderous rampage, but feral isn't right.
The boy's condition plays no part other than to cause them to move to the new city. He didn't need to have white skin and fangs because the viewer knows early on it isn't him (when they show the "creature" in one place, and him in another, it pretty much lets us in on it; take out the condition and you have the same story).
The boy went from trying to get his mom to help him to making incredibly stupid decisions. He hides his friend from her after the girl comes into the house, which confused me. He goes to the hospital, and lo and behold, proof positive that the girl was responsible for at least the man's death. The nurse nun had the same injury to her leg and knew the girl was prone to be in the woods. Do they call the cops? No, let's go out into the woods and put the cop's daughter in a more dangerous situation (to be fair, they did try to tell his mother, but calling the cops to talk with the nun made more sense.
And getting the mom to help him sneak into a dangerous killer's house? That was way out of character for his mom. Over protective, firm, caring... to, yeah, I'll distract the father and you just go through whatever you want, dear.
So yeah, I am with you on the different writer thought. Maybe it was a collaberation, and to make it fair, each wrote half of it. No matter what, it was a mistake. The movie was so good up until the friend came down. How long of a drive was that, anyway?
What happened to the video camera? I kept waiting for the cops to find it. Honestly, them going into the woods to look for it would have made more sense than them going to the landlord's house.
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mokienatrix
11 years ago
Erika didn't go feral after seeing her parents killed--she had gone feral years earlier. The family was in Spain after the girl had been found and rehabilitated to some extent. They were at least successful enough to put socks on her and braid her hair, though we never did hear her speak. Seeing her parents killed apparently shocked her badly and she regressed.
The cop specifically tells Santi that the Germans left town the year before. The nun's injury (obtained at least a year earlier) and claim that Erika wanted to return to the African jungle don't disprove that. And the cop doesn't pause to add, "Well, she DID slash tendons all over town while she was here..." Basically, he has no reason to believe she's still in the area, and she doesn't seem to have been a problem before they 'left'.
If anything, Santi pointing out that his independent research turned up a nun with a similar injury caused by this girl would look more suspicious--it makes the shepherd's injury look like a conscious attempt to divert blame.
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