Spoilers
Okay, I will say that I did enjoy this movie even though I felt it was very confusing. Also, I came here initially to find what other people thought, and whether others were confused also. However, the reviews made me more confused than the movie did. For one thing everyone, most everyone, is saying the father, Eric McCormack, was a grieving widower who was delusional, running a fever, and taking too much medication while drinking. While I agree these notions are true...to an extent, it doesn't make sense, that when the cops burst through the door and find the caretaker locked in the attic, for the cops and the caretaker to agree that 'he' will get what's coming to him. Rather than accepting that the guy was just a little wacky on pills, fever, and delusion, this sounds like a prediction for the outcome of a guilty person who has committed a crime.
Now, it could be that the crime was in committing the act of locking the caretaker in the attic. But, they also said he was going to be thrown in jail, and it just doesn't fit that they would be so cold-hearted toward a man who has done this crime under the conditions of delusion and illness. He had to have done something more worthy and heinous as to deserve such a sentence.
Several things in the movie lead me to believe there is more to this movie than a sick father with sick kids who all take a little trip to an isolated cabin in the woods. For one thing, the little boy is complaining of nightmares which the mother tries to alleviate. This seems to occur just after the parents have had some 'words'? Were the parents in fact arguing? Then the mother was accidentally killed? Murdered? Or maybe she was supernaturally taken out of the picture by something more sinister...perhaps she released something from the whole or pipe in the ground that started what became a nightmarish turn of events. Was that why the father seemed to leap in and out of time, and did he bring this thing along with him, or was he possessed? And was this entity the presence which parted the curtains when the ambulance drove off? Why was the father even in the ambulance with the children after it was evident that he would be going to jail? And was it this sinister 'being' that led the little girl to believe that barricading the house on the inside was what 'it' wanted them to do all along? Also, why was the red stuffed toy buried beneath the snow with a hand-crafted cross? The daughter was insistent that her father bury it. What about the wolf that the father and the children all saw being hit? Granted the children didn't see that it was a wolf, but they did see that something had hit the windshield, and they wouldn't have been under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or a chronic cough only just contracted a few miles down the road. However, they were present when the mom had her hand down the cement hole.
There are just too many things left unexplained in this movie for the answer to be as simple as some of these reviews imply. I think certainly the father has done something much more gruesome than locking up the caretaker and throwing away the key. And I believe the reason he did so was more than a touch of fever, grief, and medicated delusion. Deluded he was, but to what extent? As I said, I did enjoy the movie...but I would have preferred a few more hints as to what really happened and what didn't happen. However, I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if all the details were pieced together, all neat and tidy. After all, it is a thriller.
Okay, I will say that I did enjoy this movie even though I felt it was very confusing. Also, I came here initially to find what other people thought, and whether others were confused also. However, the reviews made me more confused than the movie did. For one thing everyone, most everyone, is saying the father, Eric McCormack, was a grieving widower who was delusional, running a fever, and taking too much medication while drinking. While I agree these notions are true...to an extent, it doesn't make sense, that when the cops burst through the door and find the caretaker locked in the attic, for the cops and the caretaker to agree that 'he' will get what's coming to him. Rather than accepting that the guy was just a little wacky on pills, fever, and delusion, this sounds like a prediction for the outcome of a guilty person who has committed a crime.
Now, it could be that the crime was in committing the act of locking the caretaker in the attic. But, they also said he was going to be thrown in jail, and it just doesn't fit that they would be so cold-hearted toward a man who has done this crime under the conditions of delusion and illness. He had to have done something more worthy and heinous as to deserve such a sentence.
Several things in the movie lead me to believe there is more to this movie than a sick father with sick kids who all take a little trip to an isolated cabin in the woods. For one thing, the little boy is complaining of nightmares which the mother tries to alleviate. This seems to occur just after the parents have had some 'words'? Were the parents in fact arguing? Then the mother was accidentally killed? Murdered? Or maybe she was supernaturally taken out of the picture by something more sinister...perhaps she released something from the whole or pipe in the ground that started what became a nightmarish turn of events. Was that why the father seemed to leap in and out of time, and did he bring this thing along with him, or was he possessed? And was this entity the presence which parted the curtains when the ambulance drove off? Why was the father even in the ambulance with the children after it was evident that he would be going to jail? And was it this sinister 'being' that led the little girl to believe that barricading the house on the inside was what 'it' wanted them to do all along? Also, why was the red stuffed toy buried beneath the snow with a hand-crafted cross? The daughter was insistent that her father bury it. What about the wolf that the father and the children all saw being hit? Granted the children didn't see that it was a wolf, but they did see that something had hit the windshield, and they wouldn't have been under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or a chronic cough only just contracted a few miles down the road. However, they were present when the mom had her hand down the cement hole.
There are just too many things left unexplained in this movie for the answer to be as simple as some of these reviews imply. I think certainly the father has done something much more gruesome than locking up the caretaker and throwing away the key. And I believe the reason he did so was more than a touch of fever, grief, and medicated delusion. Deluded he was, but to what extent? As I said, I did enjoy the movie...but I would have preferred a few more hints as to what really happened and what didn't happen. However, I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if all the details were pieced together, all neat and tidy. After all, it is a thriller.