MovieChat Forums > Dark Touch (2014) Discussion > Can someone explain the ending?

Can someone explain the ending?


I like first 3/4 of the movie. Until the last part where she roasted the foster parents who tried to take care of her. Doesn't make sense. Is she a psychopath with super power? And what is with the high-pitched sound that only she and the foster mother can hear? So did the foster parents abused Mary? So many questions unanswered.

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The foster parents didn't abuse her (though they did slap and shake her out of frustration). I think the point was they were good people but she was so messed up from the abusem in her mind everyone had bad intentions or were evil and abusive, when in reality not everyone was. I mean she was even upset by kids playing with dolls in a rough manner. And not sure of the relevance of the high-pitched sound the foster mother could hear, guess she had some kind of feedback against telekinesis.

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I think part of the reason the girls beating up on the dolls was so triggering to her was because it reminded her of the abuse her baby brother endured.

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A lot of people seem to have this complaint about the film.

I just watched it, and although the foster parents aren't technically abusive, they really are *beep* - and completely unwilling to try to imagine what the little girl is going through. They just try to force her to behave in what they see as appropriate or normal fashion. She makes it obvious that she's uncomfortable with being touched, so her foster mother grabs her arm and tells her 'tough luck, you're going to have to get over it...'

I think the point is that people who are well-intentioned can still be doing harm because the effects of child abuse are much more complex than most people assume.

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I am thinking maybe the Foster Mother has suffered some kind of abuse when she was younger and that is why she hears the high pitch sounds.

And yes, the Foster Parents where still abusive to a degree, touching the girl when she didn;t want to be touched, and not really helping her cope with what had just happened in her life.

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The high pitched sounds that she hears are her daughter Mary's screams for help. When Niamh is first seen screaming at her window, see flashback's to the little girl who we first think is a younger Niamh, but later learn was the Nat's daughter Mary who died years earlier. I think the violent entity is Mary's spirit that was communicating with Niamh. We know she had cancer (I'm guessing leukemia to explain away all the bruises in her photos), but if Niamh's dad was her doctor, he would have had access to her alone and been able to abuse her. It's never pointed out exactly who had abused Mary, but that's the only logical implication. Nat hears the ringing in her ears which is really Mary trying to call attention to her own past abuse, as well as Niamh and the neighbour kids who were getting beat up by their mom. After the mom fails to recognize what has happened, her spirit decides to turn her rage toward the parents. That was my take on what happened anyway.

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I just found that there was no point of Mary at all. What relevance did she have? Nothing
Disappointing because there were references to her throughout the film but no actual point of her and any connection to her parents.

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In my mind, Mary was part of the story to show how very little Niamh is able to trust adults. There's one point in the movie when she asks Nat "why is she dead," and I took the implication to be, "if you really loved her, why did you kill her?" I think Niamh doesn't believe Mary was actually ill. She's so distrusting of adults (for good reason), and knows all the lies her own parents told to disguise their abuse of their own children. In Niamh's mind, Mary's death proved that Nat and Lucas were abusers.

I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!

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yes plus Mary was probably actually abused by the lead girl's father who was Mary's doctor. So the lead girl knew Mary was abused and assumed she was abused by her parents.

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I would suggest everyone watch the short documentary called 'Child of Evil., It's about a young girl (4 or 5 I think) that was so severely sexually and violently abused (even as a baby)that when she was adopted later, her foster parents were literally in danger. The girl would hide knives, stick needles into her younger brother, tortured him and animals, wanted to murder her parents, etc. They eventually had to lock her in her room at night in fear that she'd kill them in their sleep. Fortunately she was successfully rehabilitated and fully recovered.

I mention this because you asked if she was a psychopath, which isn't the case. Due to her repressed abuse, plus finding the pictures of the dead daughter who looked beat up, the washing scene, the slap, etc. It just triggered her reaction to her abuse before, and now she felt that her foster parents too. Think the prom scene of Carrie, and how she reacts after the pigs blood.

Also, I don't think they necessarily abused her, but they certainly weren't fit to take care of her. Even before she washes her she says she'll do her after the young kids are gone because she's a big girl. But she should have known that since she was crying that that was not how to go along with it.

I'm surprised she wasn't put into therapy every, which made no sense.

And as for the ringing, it was probably some form of telekinetic/mother's instinct that would happen when something was wrong. Or maybe the young girl transmitted it to her. I'm not entire positive.

I thought it was a solid flick though. It could have really exploited the child abuse subject, especially in a horror film, but the director balanced both themes quite well.

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The movie was actually called Child Of Rage about a girl named Catherine; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103955/

Catherine was based on Beth Thomas. Beth's mother died when she was 19 months at which point her father repeatedly raped her until social services removed her and her brother Jonathan, the documentary can be found here;

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4‎

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Wow. That docu, while dated, is crazy. Thx for the link.

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Totally welcome, :D it was sometime ago but it's still powerful as it was the first time I saw it. It's nice to know that after all she went through Beth ended up okay.

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It's obvious to me that the writer wants you to know that just as those innocent foster parents were unfairly tortured, ultimately burned to death, screaming, is a metaphor for the innocent children, who are tortured and burning alive inside, but without a voice to scream... or whatever voice they have is useless, just as the foster parents.

The children were only doing what they were shown by adults, a metaphor for our society. The kids unleashed their internal pain on the adults, because it's what they felt inside.

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In other words, no. No one here can explain the ending. :)

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