would someone please help me out with the ending of this film cause i thought the film was great yet the ending a mystery.
was alice crazy? did she make up those people only for her story? if so how she get the lucy necklace?
or was david made up? was alice really david and killed lucy for sleeping with another man?
some light on this subject would be great
Well, I thought the movie was awful and the only mystery to me is why it was ever made. But to address your question:
*SPOILERS* (as if I could spoil this movie more than the filmmakers did)
The ending was confused and ill-conceived, to be sure. I feel that Alice wasn't necessarily crazy but was just plumbing the depths of her soul to write this screenplay and acting out the particulars of the story alone in a big old house. The implication is that the characters are all in her mind (Alice's girlfriend Rebecca doesn't find David's corpse on the floor, for instance, a big indication that he never existed) and that she was subsuming her own voyeuristic personality into the character of David. Thus Rebecca's supposedly disturbing revelation in the last shot--omg, the fictional David has aspects of the real Alice's personality! Will jealousy and murder ensue?? Whatever.
But, but--the necklace! you say. Either Alice purchased it for herself at some dollar store (you know, the rack with all the name necklaces hanging off it in alphabetical order) or it's an extremely lame attempt by the writer/director to add one little note of ambiguity--it was all in her mind ... OR WAS IT?!?!?!?!? If only this pathetic little story had stayed all in Sean McConville's mind.
"Deadline" might have been a witty riff on how nutty writers can get when they're writing (see Kubrick's "The Shining") instead of the dumb, dull, unimaginative mess it is. Perhaps McConville even intended it that way--I got to wondering if perhaps he was parodying the entire haunted house genre, given that every freakin' door in this house had absurdly overdone Foley squeaks--but in the end I found no signs of intelligence in this dopey, literal-minded slab of hokum.
Exactly. There's a handful of reasons to support the 'in her mind' ending, then there's half a dozen continuity errors as well.
This movie was lame as hell, no 2 ways about it. Groan inducing dialogue, cliche and non likable characters, too much drama, lame duck ending, terrible acting. Poor Thora Birch, what happened to her career?
Answer: The same thing that happened to Britney Murphey's face...good lord...
"Andrew, we can't possibly be dead. We have cable." - Nothing
Answer: The same thing that happened to Britney Murphey's face...good lord...
----------------------------
LOL good one. i liked that.
and poor thora. fancy being reduced to starring alongside marc blucas!!!!!!!!!!!!! that guy from buffy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if everything was Alice's screen play how did Alice called her best friend Rebbecca told her about David woods??
:(
If Alice was hallucinating (or creating in her own mind) visions of animated corpses, wet footprints leading up to the attic, a chair falling over--TWICE! (oooh! scary, boys and girls!), and so on, it's not much of a stretch to consider that she was hallucinating (or creating in her own mind) Rebecca telling her about David Woods.
shareYeah...and I think that in the phone call at the end Alice says that she had told her about it on the phone, and Rebecca says she hasn't heard from her in days, so the suggestion is she imagined it.
But yeah, the ending confused me too LOL That's why I came on the board. I got it, ie. all in her imagine, which, to be fair, wasn't exactly a very good twist, you could see it coming a mile off....but anyway, the bit that confused me was Rebecca watching the camera to see Alice having filmed her in bed. Didn't get the point of that bit...I was trying to work out what it meant.
Anyway, my theory about half an hour in would have made a much better film! I thought the guy filming...David I think...was going to end up being Alice's boyfriend, because after all, she couldn't see him, because he was behind the camera, but then he was shown in shot with the paint and that blew that theory LOL Would have been better though! In my humble opinion ;-)
*spoilers*
...tho if you've read this far I'm sure you're beyond worrying about that.
To me, most of the pieces fit at the end, but in a lame way. It just seemed kinda cheesy and anticlimactic in the way you discover what appears to just be a PTSD suffering writer under pressure, acting out some personal-experience-based scenes of her screenplay.
It all comes together with Rebecca at the end. When she says she hasn't heard from Alice, you know those conversations were part of Alice's imaginings. Then you realize that the screenplay contained scenes we had just seen acted out. The necklace, as well as the dress, were probably brought with her and was probably her own suitcase that we saw her dumping the items out of.
The significance of Rebecca with the camera at the end was just an extension of tying it together. It showed a replay of a scene we had previously seen from David's perspective toward Lucy. So it reiterates that the characters were imagined and reality-based while also suggesting that nothing had been taped since Alice last saw Rebecca.
There are only 2 things that still don't fit for me. I don't get why we see dead Lucy saving Alice from David at the end. I guess it could just be how it played out in her head, tho doesn't quite fit with simply acting out a scene. I get any images and sounds all being explained away as imagined. But the other thing I can't make sense of at all. The first supernatural type thing we see is I believe Lucy's ghostly face in the mirror. But it happens as Alice leaves the room and shuts off the light, which means only we see it, not her. I guess that one could actually be a plot hole.
Okay, I have two theories regarding the ending.
Theory One: Lucy was real, but David was a projection of Alice and her imagination.
Alice killed Lucy, and when she returned to the house (probably not remembering), she tried to kill herself (possibly out of guilt), hence 'David' drowning her and Lucy saving her.
This also ties in with Ben calling and asking Alice for forgiveness (Alice asking Lucy for forgiveness by killing herself, and Lucy granting it by saving her).
Theory Two: Lucy and David were both Alice's imagination, David being a representation of herself, and Lucy being Alice's representation of Rebecca.
Alice moved into the house to finish writing, and began imagining all of the videos. Essentially losing her mind (and possibly being lucid enough to realize David was her, and she was imagining killing Rebecca), she tried to drown herself, and Rebecca (seen as Lucy) saved her.
The video at the end would've been taken before Alice left the city.
Just my two cents.
Take it or leave it.
As to the question about the face being in the mirror and us only seeing it ... it's just part of her book that she wrote and is in her mind... she doesn't have to see it... she wrote it. We are obviously not just seeing what she sees .. we are also seeing what she is writing as well.
shareThe part where Alicia's girlfriend is watching the film of her in bed, I don't think is just an extension of tying the end together of how there were no Lucy/David tapings, but also that Alicia was putting some of her characteristics into David as well as her ex-boyfriends. The entire voyeristic thing that David was doing the entire film is something that Alicia does to her girlfriend. And, her girlfriend hating being taped as did Lucy. So, Alicia incorporated some of her aspects in the character of Lucy as well as her girlfriend.
I think the ending was supposed to make Alicia look even creepier and crazier than she already appeared. Suggesting that maybe her and Alicia relationship could head into a similar smothering relationship that was displayed by David and Lucy.
I actually liked this film- it was odd and eerie. I'm confused about the ending and these theories still don't make sense to me.
I don't see how Alice would be 'David' because Alice is the one who miscarried her baby in her husband/boyfriend's attempt to drown her. That should correlate with Lucy's role. Rebecca is like Marie, Lucy's friend. For example, when Alice tells Rebecca that she doesn't "want Ben to get the wrong idea" it reminds me of Lucy talking to Marie.
I think that the 'roles' that Alice acted out go as follows:
Alice: Lucy
Rebecca: Marie (other 'man')
Ben: David
I think that Alice, being alone and neglecting her medication, suffered from a mental breakdown from post-traumatic stress while acting out her screenplay. Afterall- Rebecca did tell her to write about her own experiances.
However, this theory leaves a gaping plothole. If Alice was Lucy, why was Alice the one with the camera in her relationship with Rebecca? That would be linked to the personality of David yet nothing else about her actions lead to her representing David.
Also, as some of you previously mentioned, there's the question of the Lucy necklace. I believe that the necklace is meant to "shock us" as a plot twist when, in reality, it doesn't make sense.
Just my two cents.
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
I know it sounds lame... but the ending was hard for me to watch. it was just so sad. because of how Brittany passed away. I just kept thinking how there's no happy ending for her in real life. :-(
I'm not saying the movie was a masterpiece. but I thought Brittany's performence was better than it had any right to be for this type of film. I liked the tense atmosphere and it's slowburn storyline.
~I love the rhythmn it is my methoood!~
I know what you mean!!! The ending was really hard to watch for me too .
Alot of people think this movie is a disaster but I liked it and Brittany was great- as always.
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
R.I.P. Brittany Murphy
[deleted]
I must be one of the very few people that found this movie entertaining. It wasn't a fabulous movie but interesting. Sort of Lifetime Network quality--kind of a chick-flick haunted house movie. I wonder if it makes a difference--the gender of the person watching it whether they like it or not or maybe it's just me. It reminded me of movies like "The Marsh", "100 Feet" or "The Eye". Not so much horror, more thriller or suspense and maybe more appealing to women than men?
I figured that the videos she was watching were just a story she was writing. When she watched the one where Lucy is painting the chair, I told my boyfriend, "She's writing a story about these people". I think much of it is up for debate as to what certain things mean and perhaps it's not meant to have a totally tied up audience-agreed meaning to it all. I interpreted it as she's emotionally unstable because of the abuse of her ex, she's isolated writing a screenplay and what is happening in the story is a combination of her creative process and her instability. Creative people can be kind of wacked. Her writing is theraputic to what she is going through. It's how she processes what has happened to her. I know someone's gonna say "But it's just plotholes" or "It makes no sense". . . Well
Buffy: "Alright, I get it. You're evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?" -Amends
Zephyr-123...
I found the movie entertaining too. :-) like you said it wasn't a masterpiece but it was fun to watch. I'm not dissappointed that I bought it on dvd. (I'm a guy btw.) I also own "The Eye" and want to buy "100 feet". hmm... guess that means I'm a tad femmine?
~I love the rhythmn it is my methoood!~
I found this kind of entertaining also, and the plotholes could actually all be explained away if I really cared about them. It's at least worth a showing on Lifetime if no place else. (But comparable to 100 Feet? That had a gross-out ewww fest in one particular scene that I am glad I won't ever see again, lol.) I think a better film comparison is The Uninvited, which was also a better film overall.
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
From what i understand,
Ben really tried to drown Alice and caused her to miscarry. She kinda repressed this memory but the memory surfaced while she was writing the script. When this combined with her mental sickness(whatever she's taking the prescribed drugs for) she became unable to separate her imaginations from her repressed memories and they got tangled up together.
She imposed her character aspects to David which is understandable because when you watch a movie you identify yourself with the camera and David is the camera(he films everything he sees) in that fabricated memory/script or whatever. Since Alice is both the audience and the creator of this memory so she can change it too. This is the coolest part of the movie in my opinion.
She also added stuff from the house to the script(the house,Lucy necklace,red dress and probably the tapes except the last one <this one is open for discussion but i think i'm right, she finds the last tape, which is the one with Alice tied up to the chair and being drowned later on, in the camera.This can't be real since camera belongs to Alice in the first place. >But theres no reason why other tapes can't be real.)
Near end of the movie when Rebecca arrives to check on Alice, she checks the phone but was unable get a dial tone so most likely the phone was broken the whole time and none of conversation made on it were real.(Ben drowning Alice part is probably true because Alice and Ben talk about this on her cellphone)
So most likely Alice never really did receive the phone call from Ben where he apologized?
i enjoyed the movie.It wasnt a masterpiece but it was very entertaining and interesting story.
Katrina
To me, the way I see the truth of the story is that there probably was a Lucy and David. Alice was in their house, she saw Lucy's clothes, she saw the crib, she probably DID see footage from Lucy and David's time living in the house - happy scen.
However, that's probably where it ends.
Alice is extremely disturbed, suffering from a breakdown after her boyfriend got extremely jealous and tried to drown her in the bathtub, causing her to have a miscarriage. I believe that whole part was true.
She translates the whole thing into another format - the script - which is by the way what Rebecca had even SUGGESTED she do at the beginning of the movie. Only Alice did it in an unusual way, writing herself as an outsider (because she feels detattached from herself and life) seeing inside the lives of this couple who once lived there. She gives David part of her personality as a voyeuristic filmmaker and probably characteristics of Ben, her ex-boyfriend who had tried to kill her. She gives Lucy the part of her personality that is nervous, somewhat distant and emotionally desperate to get away from things.
When she sees Lucy getting killed in the bathtub, she's really seeing herself as Lucy. Lucy was killed, and probably what little sanity Alice had left died when it really happened to her. Lucy's life I believe symbolises Alice's sanity slipping away in that scene.
Ben, I'm guessing probably never contacted her - she imagined it because she's probably been hoping he would call to say he was sorry or that she was now free from him, because although he was in prison she's probably felt trapped by what he done to her all this time. I wouldn't be surprised if Ben even LOOKED like David.
How she ended up in the bathtub at the end, I'm guessing she just put herself there and ran the water, let it drain away because she was probably trying to "re-live" the moment. Almost like a "Born again scene" in reverse.
I wondered if Ben looked like David also, but where did she get Lucy from, maybe she watched Ghost World before she came to the house..
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.