The Killer (major spoiler)

Two scenes revealed that Holland was alive and Niles had died. One is the old neighbor lady scared to death by the rat that Holland pulled out. She sees it is Holland who visits her and calls him Holland. The second is in the apple cellar when Niles and Holland are having an argument over who killed the baby. Holland asks Niles who are you and he answers, "I'm Niles Perry" but Holland answers, "are you sure?" Niles was always stating that Holland was the bad one and in the end, Holland was right. He is the bad one having killed his father, crippled his mother, caused his grandmother to commit suicide, murdered his cousin Russell, drowned the baby, scared the neighbor to death, and killed his younger twin.

-- If Ewan McGregor were a lollipop I'd be a diabetic strumpet --

****film and novel spoilers******


I have seen the movie and read the novel (both are superb), and I have never been confused. Holland fell into the well and died. Niles, grief-stricken by his brother's passing, mentally brought him back by playing the "game". In the process, he took on Holland's evil personality at times to compensate for the deficit. The "conversation" in the barn ("are you sure?") was simply Niles talking to himself after becoming confused as to which identity he was portraying at the time. At the end of the novel, the narrator, who is clearly Niles, insists that his name is Holland, because he had irreversibly gone too far with the "game".

The idea that it was Niles who had died, to me, is easily dismissed. It makes for some nice conversation, but I think Thomas Tryon is laughing from beyond at the whole concept. Does anyone really think that a family would put the wrong name on a child's gravestone because they were too dim to physically distinguish between twins that they had raised and known since birth? There is always a small, distinguishing physical feature (e.g., a freckle, a birthmark, etc) that relatives latch onto early on so that they know who is who. Ada was an especially alert and insightful person and would never have been deceived by Holland imitating Niles if that had truly been the case.


He who conquers himself is mightier than he who conquers a city.

I had the impression that the good twin was alive and the bad one fell in a the well while trying to kill a cat. It is Niles who is bodily alive because other people call him Niles (except for the crazy neighbor). But at the VERY END when Ada tries to burn Niles and herself, Niles escapes and becomes (in his own head) Holland. Still the same body. So at that point Holland has totally taken over.

That's how I interpreted. I've read the book and seen the movie but it was a long time ago.

Having just watched the movie I have a completely different take than the posts I've read. I saw this on TV when I was a kid and couldn't finish watching it and this is the first time I watched the whole thing through.

Anyway, I came away thinking Niles was always the evil one, but in his mind he pretended all his evil deeds away by pretending it was actually Holland that did them.

From the first scene I wondered if there was only one of them since you never seen the two of them together where anyone could see them together.

The one that seemed to want the ring was Niles. He went so far as cutting his dead brother's finger off to get it and carrying the severed finger around with him. But in his mind it's Holland that tells him he can have the ring and to snip off his finger to get it. Which goes back to "Holland" killing their father to have the ring. How do we know it's Holland? What if Niles did it and pretended it was Holland, much like he did when he pushed his mother down the stairs to get the ring away from her and pretended Holland did it. And maybe Holland was trying to rescue the cat when he fell.

The one confusing scene is the old lady neighbor who calls Niles "Holland" when she starts spanking him. She's there next door neighbor so she'd know very well that Holland was dead. How could she live next door and not know one of the twins wasn't dead. Since there's a headstone in the cemetery there'd have been a funeral.

I think that may be where the game comes in. When Niles did bad things he would pretend he was Holland. Much like he pretended to be the bird and imagined a pitchfork going into the bird, but the bird was actually the cousin he hated falling on the pitchfork trap he left for him.

Anyway, I think it's a very good movie. I've never read the book. Is my interpretation right. I have no idea. I think the way the movie didn't really clearly come out and say it leaves it open to a lot of interpretation, but for me I think Niles was always the evil twin and couldn't accept the bad things he did so he pretended he was Holland when he did them. It's almost like the harmless games where twins will pretend to be each other but Niles took it to psychotic proportions to the point he no longer knew when he was pretending to be Holland. Until his psyche split in two with one side being Niles and the other being Holland.