Is it me or the story didn't make much sense?
See question.
shareMade sense. Just wasn't very good, plausible, or well told.
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Yes, that is the story, and that progression was obvious, but what makes no sense is that the daughter had hallucinations at all. It makes sense that the father did, as he was exposed to a great shock at a young age, and thus his mind incapable of dealing with the reality invented "hallowface" to make sense of it.
The daughter on the other hand had no reason to have such hallucinations. All that happened was she read a story, got creeped out and built an effigy.
The "tangled psyches" thing was nonsense.
Even if you ignore that and just shrug your shoulders and say its a movie, magic things happen, it still wasn't very well done. Not terrible... but not great.
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There's vivid nightmares... and then there's nightmares that magically send you into anaphylactic shock, something that is strictly related to allergies.
I'm not looking for a supernatural explanation at all. I completely understand what they were doing in this movie. It's not that hard to understand.
I DO think that THEY were trying to push the magical monster red herring so hard that they ignored the actual medical and psychological realities of the setting they were presenting for the sake of maintaining the illusion of the supernatural.
It's a pretty common situation in movies that sell themselves as "supernatural" only to reveal via plot twist that it was not supernatural at all.
From my understanding they were actually suffering from folie à deux as the psychologist suggested. Due to their bond, the traumatic experience he suffered returned to cause problems for his daughter.
As a kid he manifested the monster that looked a bit like a dementor from Harry Potter. The reality was it was his dad dressed the same.
His daughter's imagination is ignited from the note. After they build the effigy her monster takes on a more human form, more like an intruder. Clive being an adult knows monster don't exist, but a burglar dressed in a hood who fights does.
Father and daughter discussed the monster/nightmare and due to their bond they were both living out the nightmare.
Just my tuppence
I think you are right that IS what they were going for but they didnt do a good job of it. Folie à deux is VERY very very rare, and really requires the two effected individuals be pretty isolated.
The daughter was not in a situation where her fathers impact would be so great that his delusion would induce the same in her.
I think you could build a movie around that idea, but they just barley touched on it to justify the core of the film, the film wasn't really based on it.
Like I say, it wasn't a terrible movie, but I just think it was a weak treatment over all.
It's only suggested by the psychiatrist, there is not that much in the movie that supports either story/ explenation. I think it is rather clear Owen reacts to his daughters hallucination (if you will) shown on security camera, to go into the shared hallucination himself..?
shareI can see that in a way, it's like the tragedy of seeing his friend die the same way as his father must've subconciously triggered all those hidden nightmares so to speak, which is why he believed he saw something as well that first night. I assume that's where they were going with that anyway, I totally can see the boy and his mom bc of her guilt (even tho I guess he was a monster) of letting him fall and the trauma for her as well, plus the boys trauma, so seeing him everywhere she goes and invading the boys room at night after the fact would make sense in their case, but I did agree it was lil much to believe the girls part, bc hers was much more involved it seemed....maybe it's bc she believed it and since hers really was in her head and not a traumatic experience like the boys, it explains why hers was so much more imaginative and more supernatural like..idk only thing that explains it, I did like it just found myself asking the same question as everyone else about the girls part.
sharewhat makes no sense is that the daughter had hallucinations at all. It makes sense that the father did, as he was exposed to a great shock at a young age, and thus his mind incapable of dealing with the reality invented "hallowface" to make sense of it.Building the effigy on the lawn had much the same effect on Mia that the fake "exorcism" in the church had on Juan and his mother, but I agree it's a little far-fetched that it would have that profound an effect on her psyche.
The daughter on the other hand had no reason to have such hallucinations. All that happened was she read a story, got creeped out and built an effigy.
It's possible that there was a genetic/hereditary aspect to the hallucinations - Juan's mother was also convinced that something (her husband's ghost?) was stalking them, even if she never saw it. Possibly that branch of the family was just genetically predisposed to this sort of thing, and Mia inherited a big dose of crazy from her Spanish side. share
Yeah. Maybe if they took a different route somewhere in the script and gave us a little more medical foreshadowing or background it would have been a better film.
I think the problem is they just tried too hard to sell us the "monster", and not hard enough to sell the psychological aspect.
I prefer the supernatural explanation :)
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