MovieChat Forums > I Am a Ghost (2014) Discussion > I kinda don't understand

I kinda don't understand


... why she's wearing a bonnet, like it's 1730, while listening to a radio from 1930, and is clothed in a dress from 1830? And her house is outfitted in things from the Victorian era? I know it's low budget, and it isn't the worst, but couldn't they have used a gramophone (and NO STUPID BONNET)???

They're coming to get you, Barbara!

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Oh, okay. And we just hit the moment where she did ECT. Which was developed around 1940. I know this movie was someone's baby - please, filmmaker, use Google to figure out what's appropriate for your period piece ...




They're coming to get you, Barbara!

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Its not a period film. Its more likely a film about mental illness/alternate personalities. That is why the time periods are mixed up and there is no clear sense of place.

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But why would she have memories spanning from at least the early 19th century to 1940? She apparently died young, and even if she HAD died old she still would have had to live over 100 years to cover that timespan. The problem with this "film" is it's riddled with continuity errors and the filmmakers obviously never did their homework in film school (if they even went), as well as elementary and high school. Furthermore, I understand the need to show the repetition in her daily existence, but this was absolute overkill, to the point where I wanted to continuously bang my head against the wall. Plus, in the end, first she sees the creature-man stabbing her, and then she sees herself stabbing herself. Thanks for adding to the confusion, there, buddies. It would also have been great if there had been SOME kind of deneuement to have us possibly gain a clearer picture of what might actually happen to Emily, say, for instance, if we found out if this creature-man is really another personality of hers or if he's actually an inhabiting demon that is attached to her. Instead we get no resolution but her huddled somewhere in that house with everything around her crumbling, repeating that she is a ghost...and then nothing.
I wish I could get that hour and a half of my life back. This movie is nothing but a worthless, freshman, error-riddled piece of drivel posing as an "Art house film."

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Look at the film as the story of an alternate personality. This personality believes she is a Victorian living in a huge empty house. Another violent personality shares this space with her.

Whoever the real patient is, we never see. But it seems we are witnessing some form of reintegration.

The anachronisms in the time period is simply because we aren't watching a real girl.

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Those things you mention were clear to me. At least I thought so!

The reason we see the demon stabbing her in one scene, followed by her stabbing herself, is because she is realizing and remembering what really happened. Her mental illness was that she had episodes where an evil alternate personality would overtake her, and she would not be aware of it; she thought she had blackouts. So in this scene, she is experiencing the stabbing episode as she remembered it...like there really was a demon...because she did not remember that there was no other person there. Then it shows the scene where she's stabbing herself while the demon is in the background (no longer a demon) because she remembers, now. She remembers that SHE is her own demon, her illness, and she stabbed herself. (Which is what Sylvia had told her.)

Something DID happen at the conclusion. The walls started getting dark, the dark overtaking the walls. Then the light in the room started to dim, and the room gets very dark. A medium's voice keeps repeating "Go toward the light so yu can move on!" Emily says, "There is no light! It's dark!" She then curls up and keeps repeating to herself,"I Am A Ghost."

I interpret that to mean that she's going to hell. If she were going to stay in the house, the room wouldn't get dark, I think. If she went to heaven, there would've been a light to go to.

What had happened was what Sylvia had told her would happen: She had to remember how she died, and then all her different selves/memories in the house as a ghost would come together, and she could move on.

One thng I'm confused about at the end was that it wasn't Sylvia's voice telling her to move on; it sounded like some man's voice.

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Yes, the bonnet looked out of place. But I thought it was because she seemed to live in an urban area, and bonnets like that were usually worn in the country by poorer people, I think. But bonnets like that were worn in the 1800s (Little House on the Prairie). If that's an 1800s dress, then that fits, as well.

The Victorian furnishings - that could be because they have been in the house for ages. Not unusual for people to keep furnishings, esp passed down by ancestors. Think about it: Those furnishings were STILL in the house at the time that Sylvia was there. Sylvia mentioned the rug, sat at the writing table, etc.

I'm not sure of the radio. That's perplexing. Maybe it's saying that other things in the house that have happened while Emily was there as a ghost have become part of her "memory" pattern? Maybe she really liked the radio that she was exposed to in the 1930s, so it's part of her experience in the house, now. Because she wants it to be.

The director/writer wouldn't make an error by including a radio in a movie where everything the ghost experiences is in the 1800s. So it was intentional, IMO. In fact, the early 1800s didn't have electricity at all.

Maybe this was supposed to have taken place later than the early 1800s. Maybe late 1800s? Or the turn of the century?

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