So.. Wait...


Huh??

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Everything she was experiencing that she thought was ghost from something awful that happened in the house was actually her having premonitions (being able to see little bits of things that happen in the future) if you paid attention, all the stuff she saw and creepy things that happened unfolded exactly like the but with everyone there, so the weird things she heard and saw showed its actual purpose and what was happening.

Basically, that event from that night has been haunting people living in the house since the 1800's. The modern twist on this movie though is that the haunting is from ghosts/dead people from the future (the night all the crazy stuff went down) not the past like most people think.

That psychic woman who got possessed by the woman trying to steal her baby, said that when tragic deaths happen you can pick up on them but on different planes/different times. Meaning in this case the future. When the psychic lady died (because she was possessed by the crazy girl at the end who gets her throat slashed) she said right before she died, "It's not what you think.....it's you." Meaning, you are the one involved in the tragic events.

When she went to ask the man whose family lived in that house years ago they were hearing things too, and they hired a medium/psychic someone who can converse with the dead to come check it out...and the medium drew pictures of what she saw. The pictures were of Everly and David.

In the beginning of the film she gets in a car accident and accidentally runs into a car of a woman with her child. So that woman, I forget her name dammit but the "friend" she makes in yoga class stalks her basically, pretends to be her friend and makes this crazy plan to steal her baby from her.


It all makes sense to me, and is kind of a cool unique idea but I don't really buy that ghosts can haunt people in the past from the future because it hasn't happened yet. But the film was primarily about premonitions...seeing into the future, so, I guess I have to roll with it.

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"Everything she was experiencing that she thought was ghost from something awful that happened in the house was actually her having premonitions (being able to see little bits of things that happen in the future) if you paid attention, all the stuff she saw and creepy things that happened unfolded exactly like the but with everyone there, so the weird things she heard and saw showed its actual purpose and what was happening. "

Right. But ... that was all just a gimmick, wasn't it? A filmmaker's gimmick. Even though she saw the various things before, when they actually happened she couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't figure out why things were happening until they started to try to cut out her baby. So story-wise there really was no purpose to her having the visions of what was going to happen, only to make it seem to viewers that it was a horror of some sort.

Cute gimmick but in the final analysis, so what?? That is what I feel.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

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That was the point... the psychic said when a tragedy goes down you can get "peices of it in different waves on different planes" etc etc .So the reason she was having premonitions is simply because it happened. Everyone in that house sort of was getting "haunted" by the premonitions they were having of that one night. It wasn't to save anyone, it was just happening.... because the energy from the deaths was time traveling. Which.....makes no sense but no its not a gimmick it did have a purpose. It's purpose was that the house WAS haunted just not in a ghost way. It was haunted by what happened and instead of people seeing spirits they were seeing how that night plays out.....and who's to say what that "energy" was or those visions. Maybe it is super natural but that is the least likely to make sense. Premonitions aren't always to that people can do something about it and save it all from happening. And they woudn't have been having the premonitions if someone were able to change anything that occured... it obviously happens or they wouldn't be seeing anything lol. So saving them wasn't the point of the film. It was just unfortunately to show their inevitable fate. And she did figure it out way before her stomach was getting cut open, doesnt mean she was in control. She did get kinda lucky because of the visions, she couldnt save everyone.

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My point, MsPenny, is that even without the visions the story would have turned out the same way, so the visions were just a gimmick, at least that is what it was for me. If the visions had allowed her to realize it in time to take actions to avoid the killings, for example, then the visions would have had a function within the story.

Without a function the visions are just a curiosity. A gimmick.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

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We don't know how the visions played out: were they visions of the couple getting the baby or were they visions of the couple being killed or was there a third or even fourth 'vision' outcome? We as the audience only got pieces of the visions also. Yea we saw the gun on the floor and the wine exploding but we didn't see Eva Longoria there or that blonde therapist. Maybe the rifle exploded the wine in the vision or the handgun. (I forget which one we actually saw do it.) There were no cell phones in the vision or the drawings but Isla and David tried to call and we knew David would get hurt.

So yes, the visions were a movie gimmick (thus the movie's title) but Isla did take actions to avoid her baby being kidnapped. We just don't know how things would've turned out if she hadn't realized 'this was the night' but that's what the movie was about - Isla figuring out what the visions were and saving her baby. They don't make many movies anymore where the kid gets killed in the end.


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I know I am late, but I just saw the movie. We actually did see Eva Longoria there - one of Evelyn's early premonitions was of Eva Longoria being killed.

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@TxMIke

While it did feel gimmicky, I disagree on function with ultimate consequence. In a big way!

One particular vision had a crucial effect on the story. Evie was very narrowly saved by her newly conscious husband because he was able to locate the loaded gun. He told her, "It was right where you said it would be."

Therefore, that particular premonition had an important impact on what otherwise might have happened - a dead preganant woman and probably her baby. The husband was so weak that he nearly passed out after the kill shot. Had he tried to pull the bad guy off of his wife, he would've likley been killed himself before Evie's demise. Also, he may have not seen the handgun under the table had he not heeded her dramatic premonition.

Evie's husband truly needed that gun in the life-or-death moment, and knew to look under the table after realizing her premonitions were now factual. As you pointed out, it allowed him "to realize it in time to take actions to avoid the killing..." of his wife (and unborn baby, presumably).

I hope you can now see that this alone makes the ending fairly strong and works within your argument. :)



"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

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@ TxMike
No, things would definitely not have turned out the same. You're missing the crucial element of how David and her doctor were concerned for her because of her visions and arranged the intervention. Obviously, without the intervention, the visions couldn't have happened, in line with the whole time paradox concept of a future event that sets itself in motion in the past (as in Planet of the Apes). Without the intervention, David and Evie might have been more easily dispatched.

Also, on a more figurative level, the visions represent the psychic struggle to reckon with the past (the accident), with circumstances you either had no control over, or even if you had, being in the past, you can't change now.

This was no great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think the twist was effective and more than a gimmick. It's too bad the acting, dialogue, and characters were mostly bland or annoying in the rest of the film.

"every time godzilla loses to mothra I die a little bit more"--Godzillaswrath

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The "visions" were a kind of imperfect, chaotic warning mechanism, a psychic tool that worked with her maternal instinct. They didn't give her a coherent warning, just a gut sense that something was wrong.

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