MovieChat Forums > Chasing Sleep (2001) Discussion > Extended Answers (spoilers contained wit...

Extended Answers (spoilers contained within)


Seems like this is a direct take of the Tell Tale Heart,....

Man kills wife,.... wife "haunts" him,.... he goes mad,...

Here what I think,...

1. The Police - were REAL, not imagined. Only ONE part in the movie has "imagined" police,... the late night phone call(which eventualy traps HIM in the lie)

2. The Gym Teaching Lover - was also REAL. So was the beating, so was the baseball bat and broken front door.

3. The Psychologist - I say was REAL. He gave the pills that were supposed to help him "sleep", when in my opinion, they acted like Sodium Pentathol, which is commonly known as "Truth Serum". Any one that knows about law enforcement know well what true truth serum does. It does NOT make you become honest.... it basicaly DRUGS you to the point where you feel so groggy that you dont realize your telling them everything. That is why they STOPPED using "truth serum", because Judges were throwing cases out over the whole forceful drugging for information thing. Kinda like entrapment.

4. The Baby, The Ghost, and The Finger - I believe the word is DELLUSION, not ILLUSION as stated by others,... since it was NOT "set-up" like a magic trick, it was HIM just goin nuts,... dellusion.

5. The Pipes - OLD PIPES = LEAKS, SOUNDS, FLOODING, and WATER DAMAGE,... any plumber or homeowner knows that.

6. The Ghostly Assault - Hello, Im reality,... welcome me, people. She had MEDICATION in her bag! Inhalers are NOT ALWAYS for asthma, they can be used for MANY types of direct medication. She even SAID that she felt dizzy and passed out. She was most likely epileptic or something, which would be why she hit the floor like that. PLUS, She said she HEARD a woman scream, and she herself was bleeding from her FACE. I would think she would have pointed out seeing, or at least feeling some thing hit her face? Of course! The reason she was bleeding, was because she dropped and busted her nose open on the floor. Hence the blood only being on her shirt.

7. The Neighborly Disturbance - Get with it folks!!! In one of the last scenes of the movie he HEARS his neighbors fighting, and then he hears the Man kill the wide(symbolized by the sreaming of HELP!!). DIRECTLY AFTER this, He looks out the window towards his neighbors house. He sees the man open the window and look around, as if he was seeing if any one heard what happened. If you look closely, youll see the neighbor in the window is in fact HIMSELF.

8. The Phone Call - Ok, this is a recap of the mentioned phone call,.. there are clues when he takes his pills. He drinks alchohol despite the warnings of Sadie, who even tells him it'll make the meds absorb in to the blood more rapidly. In other words, the phone call was a dellusion, caused by the meds retro-absorbing into the bloodstream before he actualy fell asleep. He then "confessed" to himself, by "dreaming" while awake, that he killed his wife and buried her in the woods. The next day, the doctor comes to visit, and keeps asking about calling the police. He kept pushing to call the police, over and over,... this is a form of psychology. When he finaly spoke, he said they called and had told him she was buried in the woods. THEY HAD NOT spoken to him AT ALL. Thats where he traped himself.

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1. Why did the cop and the doctor take the exact same pills as Jeff Daniels did?

2. Why was the baby so huge and balding?

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Everyone in the film took some sort of pills, except Sadie (she just huffed primatene-and probably did something in the bathroom-but we dont know for sure). But what makes you think they were all the same pills? The first time is the cop, the second time..is also the cop, and the third time is the doctor, but they never show the pills. In the first instance, you see what LOOKS like an advil bottle, but who knows what it is.

The baby was just...FREAKY!! I just think that it represented that he didnt want to have a child and his wife was pregnant so he was freaked out about that.

Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to

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"Everyone in the film took some sort of pills, except Sadie"

She does too!
It's not shown on screen, but she does mention taking caffeine pils to stay awake.


- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.

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The pills that the other people took where there to show how common it is to take pills against or for everything - that's what they say in the audio commentary on the DVD.

I bought the DVD and listened to the audio commentary of the director and scriptwriter and they said that the baby was looking like it did because it was supposed to look similar to the PE teacher. She said in her diary that she had not had sex with her husband for months, so he knew it was not his baby.

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I thought the whole idea behind the film was that it was all in his head, or rather that we weren't supposed to know what was real and what wasn't.


You have sexually-transmitted crazy mouth.

Blerg.

[previously nipcharmedtuck]

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I think BretEaston nailed it- anything that's coming from the director's own mouth (or someone that listened to the director's commentary, anyway), has got something on the rest of us, as far as knowledge surrounding the intentions of the film goes. I personally thought they were all "avoiding sleep," especially after Sadie mentions she takes caffiene pills, and Jeff was the only one who was CHASING SLEEP, given the fact that all his pills were sedatives instead. But, I guess I was wrong.

Interesting movie nonetheless... sort of like Stir of Echoes meets The Machinist. I can't believe it took so long for me to even HEAR of this movie, let alone watch it! Thanks again Netflix.



Just sayin'...

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if thats what you think about this movie, than you didnt get it al all. Absolutely no director would put as much focus on the pipes and leaks, the pills etc if it didnt mean something.

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I saw this movie yesterday, and this is just an assumption.

I think the house was a metephor of his mind.

The basement : Memory. With his mother dieing. Him killing the PE teacher.

The bathroom : Where he killed his wife. It was his hiding place. It held the truth that only Jeff Danials has comprehend. He was the only one that went into the bathroom, other than Sadie, which got hurt when she went in their.

The ceiling Holes : The truth and evil. It infected his hole house exept for the perfect room. He hid his murder deep in his mind, where even he couldn't find it. When he killed his wife, the bath faucet was driping. Meaning when the truth about his murder starting coming to him, the pipes started dripping.

The "prefect room" : That is where his wife kept all of her secrets. That is why the ceiling in the perfect room has not warped yet. In the end, when Jeff Danials relizes that he killed her, the ceiling starts to warp, meaning he has come to facts that she is gone.

Everything else was him lost mind trying to get back to him. The finger, the peopple outside, the baby. It was just his memory flooding in.

The pills are what made him loose his mind. And when he kept in taking the pills, the truth went further away. That is way he ALWAYS wanted the pills. So his memory would not come back.


Ok, this is probably all wrong, and please tell me what you think, just dont yell at me. Im getting really sick of all these people that only have *beep* to say. Please just be nice.


thanks

If you want to talk about this personally, my Email is [email protected]

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[deleted]

Wow, well said. This may be the best explanation that I've heard. Props willthethrilldirector, I think you nailed it.

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Sorry for my bad english!

I saw that film today, and read your post, but i have more open "questions".

For example:

He found the "moving finger" but he haven't shown "the evidence" to
the police.. -> he killed his wife

the pipes.. I think, they "moved" and pluggaged becouse he has did
something in the tub and let the "something" (i think meat of baby)
to flow down to the plughole. like the burnt diary..

(meat (like finger) -> plughole -> pluggaged pipes )



he saw the neighbour to sex with each other (and see the murdering too)
and after that, started to "sex" with his student -> its dream or not ?

cos, when they started to "sex" he started to SCARE, and maybe mindig about
from his wife.

and the phone call from the student in the end of the film -> dream or not ?

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You are right, your English is a mess. I have a headache now. Thanks

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"You are right, your English is a mess. I have a headache now. Thanks"

maybe you need to take some pills?

It is fun and games until someone gets caught. Then it's rape.

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I was able to discern your thoughts even though English isn't your first language. To the snide people: At least this person knows more than one language.

Anway, My thoughts:
- He definately killed his wife. It seems that he drowned her, then hacked her up and disposed of the large pieces in the woods where her car was found. And the smaller chunks went down the bathtub and stopped up the pipes.
- The pills did unhinge him. Proof was the phone call from the police that he hallucinated.
- When he was watching his neighbors argue and the murder, he was watching himself and his wife. Shows the arguing and that he murdered his wife.
- He had suppressed the fact that he had committed the murder and knew of his wife's pregnancy. The lack of sleep and the drugs caused bits and peices of the memories to surface and he couldn't cope with it.

I believe that the cop was really there at the end and that he really killed the PE teacher. BUT... when he held up his bloody hands at the end and said "I didn't do it", he thought the blood was his wife's.

Good movie.

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[deleted]

Hmmm, now that question, makes me want to watch it over again!

I also think that the blood from the murders, (mother and baby) was washed down the pipes, so that was the issue with the pipes.

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"At least this person knows more than one language."

He's trying, and we shouldn't be mean to him.

But on the other hand, if everyone spoke English, no one would need to know more than one language. Something to think about.

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You are really bad, you know that...?

ILOVEtrading films!I've got a HUGE..uh..collection!Please ask!

____L@th3

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everyone in the world should be able to speak in same language, and it doesnt matter if its english, french, chineese esperanto or a new made up language as long as everyone would be able to communicate.

---------------------------------------------
Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.

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