is honestly one of the most terrifying scenes in any movie I've ever seen. I'm not sure why it affects me so much, but I get chills every time I watch that scene. I remember the first time I saw it, I was really young and had nightmares for weeks. I just recently rewatched it and wow, still scary as hell!
shareit is terrifying because hailey did a spectacular job of behaving like a little boy scared out of his mind, being tormented by the bullies at school.
what really pissed me off is that the kids at the party, the head bully and the host/birthday boy were just standing there staring at the door. the only person who did ANYTHING was his mother.
even the mother of the host stood there stock still.
no one else did a thing. shows how much they care and it shows where the bullies get their nonchalant behavior from. and they don't learn from the situation, either.
Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again.
is honestly one of the most terrifying scenes in any movie I've ever seen. I'm not sure why it affects me so much, but I get chills every time I watch that scene. I remember the first time I saw it, I was really young and had nightmares for weeks. I just recently rewatched it and wow, still scary as hell!
As a mother it terrifies me watching the mom unable to get her son out. And to see the other mothers--especially the mother if the home--not helping as she banged helplessly on the door, as her son screamed in terror, scared me to my wits end.
sharethat's such a good point. I'm not a mother, but I get what you're saying. not only was the scene just scary in general, the way everyone reacted was disturbing too. no one seemed to even care except his mother.
shareI was about to post my own thread about this scene, but I'll just use this great one instead:
What gets me is Cole is thumping away at the door as hard as he can trying to get out, terrified, but then he passes out (as we can hear). THEN, as Cole's mother looks on, SOMETHING unlocks and unlatches the door and then Cole's mother can open it and retrieve her UNCONSCIOUS son whilst the unfeeling people look on.
Question: WHO unlocked the door? I'm guessing it MUST'VE been a ghost, probably the slave who realised he'd gone too far and saw potential in Cole to be a Ghost Helper?? That's my take on it, anyway.
Or the ghost just thought he went too far. Like Cole says, maybe some just want to scare him.
It wasn't until Cole tried to talk to the poisoned little girl that a ghost realized it could do more than scare Cole.
I think the ghost in the closet just wanted to scare Cole and let him and his mother off the hook once she was passed her initial scare and stopped banging on the little door.
It sounded like the ghost was stuck in his own time, reliving the awful event, and I guess when he saw Cole he pleaded with him to let him out. Cole freaked out and hyperventilated, and I guess the ghost relented and unlocked it. I don't think the ghosts are bad or shown as evil, just people reliving bad experiences in hopes of changing them. I always assumed Cole's marks & bruises were from ghosts grabbing at him or pleading with him for help. Like the tear in his red sweater.
-Who is it?
-It's Grandpa. And it sounds like he's gotten into the horseradish again.
I do not think they did not care. I think they were like deer in headlights and did not know what to do. Perhaps they thought Cole was playing a joke on his mother or vice versa, maybe they just thought the mother was crazy. I am quite sure they were not deliberately trying to be heartless towards the mother or the boy, I just think they were too shocked to do anything. In real life, sometimes people who are callous towards emergencies are too scared to respond, even if they want to help, and what happened was quite scary. The children and mothers did look shocked and did realize something terrible was going on. They just probably did not understand what was happening. I am quite sure they felt more concerned after his mother took him out. We do not know for sure how they responded when they saw her take her extremely pale son out. They were probably worried. I do not know about the boys though, but they were probably not proud of what they did afterwards. They seemed like statues when Cole started screaming horrifyingly and probably felt ashamed when the mother yelled at them and was understandably haywire.
As far as the ghost goes, yes that was freaking scary. I remember watching this in theaters and being terrified of that scene for weeks. It is amazingly the only scene that truly scared me. Still scares me just thinking about it and the last time I saw it was in theaters!
Just being locked up in a small space WITHOUT a ghost is scary enough. When I was a kid I voluntarily slept on the floor of the motel room closet where we were staying. I made the bad judgement call to close the door leaving me in pitch blackness. I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because I didn't remember where I was, and there were no ghosts around.
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