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Her dad and deception, ground rules, police procedure

posted 8 years ago by swiftest
11 replies | jump to latest

Spoilers...

My problem with the movie is the dad and the (presumably) good dead cop with the hole in his head. Neither of them helped her. The way I see it, if evil can use memories of loved ones to trick you into avenging their death, then her (real) dad's soul/ghost/whatever should have been able to communicate with her and at least try to help her. Warn her.

The other problem with this film is the ground rules were not laid out. It wasn't always clear what was real and what wasn't. That's not a problem in itself, but taken too far, it cheapens the ending. For example, the "evil" should be able to conjure up illusions, fine. But to mask out something real like the clean up crew's look and sound is just too easy. Too convenient. I guessed that ending anyway, but it still felt cheap. If evil is this powerful, then it can literally make you do anything it wants. Hell, it could've made her call in the entire police force with some bogus report and have her murder them at will within 5 minutes of the old cop leaving.

Also, when she was shot without warning, the old cop didn't even warn her to drop her weapon (unless it's the omnipotent evil tricking her again). She had already shot the cleaning guy in the head, so it's not like old cop had to shoot her to stop an imminent threat. He just arrived on the scene and did not know if she truly acted in self-defense or was neutralizing a terrorist plot, etc.

Started out promising, but the repetition and story went downhill. Nice acting by the lead actress at least.

[–] jimeverett70 8 years ago

I can agree with that.

I thought the first half really worked. I am not easily scared, but this movie did it.

But there was too much that did not seem to be relevant to the story or was used to throw you off track or something. A lot of that centered around the homeless guy. Who was he? What significance was his shoes? Why was he looking through files?

There also was not much clarity about the motivations of the Sergeant. Presumably he knew about the "haunting" but then why did he act the way he did toward the rookie on the phone call?

It was an enjoyable movie but feels like it could hve been much better.

[–] super16g 8 years ago

I agree with both of you.

I didnt think there was anything significant about his shoes other than she gave them to him. I did not understand why he would be going through the files.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Lugodoc 8 years ago

Three Satanists are captured by cops and sacrifice themselves to Satan to escape prison and gain immortal life. They haunt the police station where they died driving out the cops and forcing them to build a new station, but to be sure that the ghosts do not follow them to the new station one cop leaves a rookie cop there alone on the last night and anniversary of the deaths as a sacrifice to the ghosts, choosing the daughter of one of the cops who died capturing them as a suitable sacrifice. The three ghosts torment her with demonic visions and voices all night (of themselves, their victims, dead cops, homeless men, hookers, surviving satanic family members and even of her own father) until she goes mad and kills three civilians, giving the cop who left her there the excuse he needed to kill her and thus hopefully appease the three demonic spirits.

Karl

[–] tsilvaalmeida 8 years ago

That's a pretty cool understanding of the story, I had not linked the moving to the new station with the rest of the movie at all, or her sacrifice etc.

Is there anything in the movie that nudges into that direction, or than it simply being a possible interpretation?

[–] TheCentralScrutinizer 8 years ago

There is a point in one of her hallucinations where the ringleader of the family says something like, "I'm going to come back and kill everything that you love.", which I assumed he was saying to her father, and the "everything you love" would be her.

That would tie in with the whole blood sacrifice thing.

Not sure about that, but, just a thought.

Peace.

That had not occurred to us, Dude.

[–] Glock22 7 years ago

Not sure if I got you right, but the father was killed in the raid. He never got to witness the interrogation. Unless that was somehow said to the father before he was killed?

[–] diggergig 8 years ago

Thank you, Lugodoc. I don't care if that's just your take - that's an excellent summary which ties the movie up very nicely for me. Much appreciated.

[–] TemporaryAgent 8 years ago

Here are the problems with this interpretation:

1. This assumes everything she sees is not real, when the movie has a contrast between what's real and what isn't - e.g. the cultist who knocks out the protagonist. The scene with her exists to demonstrate not everything is going on inside her head.

2. The ghosts do not physically interact with the protagonist because they are not capable of doing so. The protagonist does interact with the homeless man and the cultist, indicating they are real. Furthermore, the homeless man doesn't appear as a ghost until after he dies and the point of the scene where he's knocked unconscious is to again demonstrate the contrast between what's real and what's the work of the ghosts.

3. If the ghosts are capable of moving to another building, then they should be capable of following the officers whenever they go. It implies they're not limited to haunting one location.

4. Most notably of all, the officer at the new station tells the protagonist that the old station is haunted. If the entire point of assigning her to watch over the old station was to sacrifice her, the officer was compromising his mission.

[–] niirachi 7 years ago

In regards to your third point, well, according to paranormal/supernatural lore, ghosts are super attached to the place their human selves died in. The dead cultists don't really haunt any other building except for that old station.

And isn't it the dispatcher, not her sargeant, that tells her the old station is haunted? IIRC, when she asks why she's there and not a security guard, Cohen tells her that there is no use for one since the department has a "fleet of blue boys on the payroll". Anyway, the OP's interpretation of a human sacrifice makes a lot of sense, seeing the way he spoke to her when she mentioned that she couldn't complete her shift. A rational person with no ill intentions would be more sympathetic.

[–] tianasenn (11) 6 years ago

They are not Satanists. During the scene with the 3 televisions showing their interrogation interviews, they mention something like, Who was in hell before God clipped satan's wings? That's who they worshipped. I didn't catch the name if they gave one, I had to watch with the volume down a bit (kids were in the living room lol). But they made a point to be disgusted when they were being referred to as Satanists. ;)