MovieChat Forums > Don't Go to Sleep (1982) Discussion > Why did she want to kill her Grandma?

Why did she want to kill her Grandma?

posted 18 years ago by dyker_the_horse
6 replies | jump to latest

Can anyone think of why Jennifer would want to kill her Grandma?

I can see why she would want to kill her Father, as it was he who was drunk, whilst driving the car which crashed, resulting in her death.

I can also see why she wanted to kill her brother Kevin. It was he (helped by Mary) who tied her shoelaces together, which prevented her from escaping from the car before it burst into flames.

However, her Grandma worshipped and totally adored her, she was her favourite. After Jennifer was killed, her Grandma even kept on talking to photographs of her, in a dedicated shrine to her memory.

Why didn't she want to kill Mary? Mary was partly responsible for the shoelaces prank, which resulted in her death.

It would have made more sense therefore, if Jennifer had come back from the dead and teamed up with Grandma, whom I'm sure would have been happy to assist her in bumping off the other members of the family.

Why then did she want her Grandma dead?

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 18 years ago

Good question.

The only answer I can come up with is, perhaps just to make it look like Mary was doing the killings. It wasn't against grandma so much as against Mary, to make her look guilty.

Why Mary? Why is HER life spared (supposedly) yet made to look like the killer?

Again, good question and no real answer. Only that perhaps Mary was more likely to bond with, or be the victim of, Jennifer. Mary was wracked with guilt and was probably VERY receptive to Jennifer's existence, whereas the others would have doubted or not bonded in the same way.

Movies like this don't always make sense. They just play out like they do for effect.

[–] CoolComix2 18 years ago

The grandmother had been the one to encourage the father to drink; she basically started the ball rolling that would result in the car crash.

[–] LurkingFigure 18 years ago

i think mary killed grandma, i think she killed them all. we saw the pizza cutter going up the rails held by a hand, and whose hand was on the other end? mary's. mary had what was then called split personality disorder. the reason mom saw jennifer at the end was because she was starting to go crazy as well after losing her whole family. that's what i think anyway.
JMHO
__
Peace and Love

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] aliceboy 18 years ago

First off, to address the actual question of this thread, the previous poster was right: granny got 'the ball rolling' with 'one more for the road,' if you recall the argument Weaver and Gordon got into earlier in the 'film.'
As for who did the killings, this movie makes no attempt to suggest it was anyone but Mary! When Kevin falls off the roof, we aren't actually shown where she is AT THE MOMENT. The implication is, of course, she went inside and pushed him from the window. It's not so much a ghost story or a mystery as a thriller, see. (Though I think it fails even at that...)

[–] vocklabruck 17 years ago

Yes, I wondered the same, especially about Mary because not only for the shoelaces prank... If you watch carefully you will note that Mary didn't help one bit to carry Jennifer out, and she was the one who closed the car door trapping Jennifer inside. If it hadn't been for that maybe Jennifer could have crawled out even having her shoes tied.

Mary took advantage of the accident to kill Jennifer because Jennifer was always the chosen one. I think Jennifer thought that Mary being hospitalized was going to be a best revenge than her death.