Given that the film is about self-aware hallucinations in a mental ward trying to help their creators, there's a lot about this film which plays with reality and fantasy. Still, even before, or even BECAUSE of it's twist, it prompts a lot of theories and discussions about how it works.
Is Bruno the creation of the man he's tormenting, or does he come from another inmate and simply terrorizes multiple people with schizophrenia?
It's never specified, but seeing as how other inmates can see different people's hallucinations, AND Bruno functions like a sleep-paralysis demon, could it be that he's the product of an earlier inmate who simply sticks around and torments anyone else who can see him?
If the other doctors in the asylum are also hallucinations, how are people, like Ana's dad, able to see them?
More specifically, how was Carmen admitted if Dr. Mendez is the ONLY person appearing to work at the psyche ward as far as her husband can see?Or am I wrong and only some of the other nurses are imaginary?
Was the fire caused by Carmen?
SPOILERS but we find out half way through the film that
Ana is really a hallucination; Ana died in a fire and her mother has been hallucinating both her and the fire itself, manifesting as a giant, smoking monster. Was Carmen seeing this fire hallucination before the death of her daughter or did it only manifest after Ana's death? And if so, could it that it had gotten so destructive and powerful out of guilt Carmen was feeling for accidentally killing her daughter in an episode?The Fire Monster is still very much alive but sealed away...
Near the finale,
ana sacrifies herself to trick the fire monster into killing her, only for them to fall towards the ocean bellow. While this would means that both are dead, Ana manages to come off unsratched (being a hallucination has it's perks), and according to Bruno, the only way for a hallucination to truly die is an expossure towards El Matasanos, making the patient braindead to no longer think of anything. This means that the Fire Monster is still very much alive, but trapped in the ocean as a sort of elemental prison... the only good news is that, as a hallucination like Ana, it's means it can't harm anyone on it's victinity.. right?
