Headscratcher pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Stella claims that most people didn’t believe her when she told the truth about Sarah Bellows, but didn’t she refer to the paperwork and the wax cylinder from the hospital's R.E.D. Room to back up her claims?
- It's possible, but it wouldn't have accomplished anything. All it would prove is that Sarah Bellows was admitted to a mental hospital, where she was submitted to beatings and electroshock treatment in an effort to make her confess to her 'crime.' There's no solid evidence that she was innocent beyond her own denials.
- It's a lot easier to destroy a reputation than to repair one. The town has grown up with the story of Sarah the Wicked Witch and the child killer, and they may not be ready to let it go just yet. There are probably also plenty of conspiracy theorists who would doubt Stella's story for no good reason.
- Sarah's book is supposed to contain every story, and the ones that don't manifest in the film can even be glimpsed on its pages. But how would this book bring to life stories with no supernatural creatures or villains, ala urban legends and gag stories?
- Fridge Brilliance: Sarah may have added those stories, once faced with the truth of her own bad actions, later on as a benign counterbalance to the horrible ones. After all, people in gag stories and the vast majority of urban legends usually survive their tales!
- Or, similar to their version of The Pale Lady, they'd undergo Adaptational Villainy.
- In the book's version of "The Big Toe", the walking corpse asks "Where is my toe?", but in the movie, it specifically asks "Who took my toe?". If the corpse is apparently ignorant of the identity of the person responsible, why does it seem so certain that any person is to blame? Why couldn't the toe have been nipped off by a scavenging animal, or broken off by sheer accident because its coffin finally caved in under the ground?
- Perhaps because Auggie eats the toe in the stew, giving the corpse the impression it was taken specifically to be eaten.
- Yep, the pot of stew is part of the story and appears out of nowhere. So the movie's corpse knows the toe was physically cut off and put in a stew.
