The poor, poisoned girl....
As a Moments page, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- "I'll show you where my dad keeps his gun. Come on." Cue preteen boy missing the back of his head!
- Bonus points for being, without question, the ghost with the most graphic death shown in the movie. There's literally no reason to expect that image of all things to show up by that point, which makes it all the more shocking when it does.
- The ghost of Kyra Collins, the poisoned little girl. The fact that she has who-knows-what coming out of her mouth and the way she breaks into Cole's tent makes it all the more worse. Though after said scene she does become rather sweet.
- Even as a ghost, Kyra's still suffering the effects of being poisoned. You'd think after shuffling off the mortal coil, someone would no longer have to endure pain of any kind. There's Jacob Marley Apparel, but then there's Jacob Marley...Illness!?!.
- So Kyra appears in Cole's tent puking her guts out, and despite being the scariest ghost in the film, Cole decides to take Malcolm's advice and try to help her. So he asks her what she wants, which leads him to her memorial service at her house. So he goes into what was her room, and a Jump Scare later, Kyra appears and creepily pushes a jewelry box towards him, and tells him to give it to her dad. So he does, and in the box is a videotape. What's on the videotape? Worse than Kyra's first appearance- it appears to be an innocent video of Kyra adorably playing with her puppets. Then she hears her mom and goes and pretends to be sleeping. Then mom comes in with her soup... dumps a cap of floor cleaner in it and feeds it to her. Yep, she's dead all because of her mom, who was poisoning her to death to get sympathy
. Even worse? At the beginning of the funeral scene, you can hear someone faintly mention that Kyra's sister is becoming sick too. Worse yet, in the bedroom scene, you can very clearly see they kept the hospital bed!!! And even worse, how far was she willing to go once Kyra's sister was dead??? Would she have turned on her husband too? The implications are just horrific.- Worse, the fact that Cole pursued this mission from Kyra implies something horrific: she knew her mother was poisoning her, and that her little sister was probably next. It also somewhat implies that she already started poisoning the sister before Kyra died. The aforementioned "I heard the little one's falling ill too...", which only just hammers this in.
- The mother wearing red at the funeral. She killed her daughter and wanted to be the center of attention even at the funeral.
- The blank face the mother has when she is caught. She doesn't look angry or worried that she was caught, just blank and emotionless.
- The ghost of the dead cyclist appearing next to Cole's car window, especially with how the shot just comes out of nowhere. She just stands there with blood running down her face with a utterly dead look on her face, before she slowly walks away.
- The ghosts hanging over the stairs, which include a man, woman, and a young boy (not much older than Cole)....
- Ghosts aside, the opening scene with Vincent is scary. We have a mentally unstable man who breaks into the house of his former psychiatrist. Said psychiatrist tries to calm him and gets shot for his trouble. This scene gets special mention because a situation like that can likely happen.
- It's a small, subtle detail, but if you listen closely, after Vincent shoots himself, you can hear his brains splattering all over the walls.
- The twist at the end can be considered this too. Malcolm is a character we've gotten to know and even care about. And the fact that he's been dead this whole time is honestly startling to see. The music and accompanying scenes add to the creep factor.
- The woman who slit her wrists screaming at Cole when he sees her in his kitchen. Also doubles as a Tear Jerker."NEDDY!! YOU'RE A TERRIBLE HUSBAND, NEDDY! LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO! NEDDY!!"
- The final shot of her storming down the hall as Cole struggles to close the tent flaps.
- Cole seeing the people who were hanged in the halls of his school.
- The angry ghost voice from the attic. Cole was trapped inside by the bullies. The place was dark and he couldn't see where the voice came from. It was enough to give Cole a traumatic experience.
- Worth noting the music from that scene goes from upbeat electro-pop to heavy industrial rock, fully suiting the quick change in tone. The balloon suddenly popping simultaneously when Cole started screaming is another worthy mention.
- To worsen things, after Cole was pushed into the attic and started screaming, only his mother seemed concerned, a few other women and the three boys did look stunned, but none looked as if they were going to offer any help either. Thankfully the scene was brief.
- The fate of the ghost, itself, is pretty horrifying too: locked in a cupboard for a horse-theft he swears he didn't commit, and left to suffocate rather than receiving a fair trial. Then lingering as a restless spirit, forced to stew in his own fear, outrage and despair, until he's so twisted by bitterness and festering grievance that he'd maul a little boy in indiscriminate fury.
- "STUTTERING STANLEY, STUTTERING STANLEY!" On top of that, just the fact that someone could know your old shame by reading your mind is horrifying.
- Malcolm listening to the the tape of Vincent as a kid, after he leaves him alone.....and a voice, clearly distressed, speaking in Spanish, can be heard, repeating the same phrase over and over again. Hearing young Vincent's shaky breathing makes it so much worse.
- Said soundbite appears after the credits, and it's even scarier there.
- Look at the perspective from Cole's mother: Your son is being withdrawn, being bullied at school, is showing signs of depression at a young age and literally no doctor can tell you why. Especially considering she's also at a mental wits end because she herself doesn't know what to do.
- A subtle bit from the big final reveal: the basement door Malcolm always has trouble opening is actually blocked by a bookcase. Apparently his wife got so freaked out by the door inexplicably being open all the time that she lugged this huge thing in front of it to make sure it never happened again.
- The first hint to the film's big twist comes near the beginning, when we see the shot from Cole's POV of Malcolm putting his notes away. The way the shot is framed is so jarring from the rest of the scene; Malcolm looks almost out of place from his setting. It makes sense that the next shot is Cole immediately having run off.
