Cole Killed Malcolm
How is this possible? Here is how: Cole sees dead people. Malcolm Crowe is one of them. When Cole sees these dead people, they are from all different times. Hundreds of years ago even. They're not just people who have recently died. So, if ghosts can travel into the future and reveal themselves to Cole, what's to say they can't travel back in time? The opening scene of the movie shows Crowe being shot by one of his patients. The patient says “Do you know why you're afraid when you're alone? I do.” You find out later that he was referring to ghosts being present. Then, after he shoots Crowe, Crowe finds another patient with an eerily similar condition: He can also see ghosts. Coincidence? I think not. Here's what really happened. Malcolm Crowe tried to help Cole, Cole couldn't be helped, so he went crazy and shot Crowe. The ghost of Crowe then traveled back in time to BEFORE he tried to help Cole. At this point in time, Crowe and his wife are separated, which is why she is depressed and thinking of seeing another man.So there you have it. Crowe tries to help Cole, Cole kills him, Crowe-Ghost travels back in time and tries to help again, only to realize that he is dead.
The twist in this movie is so insane without this theory, but hopefully it got just that much more insane.
- The ghosts from decades or centuries earlier haven't randomly traveled through time to the future, they've just been on Earth, unchanging, since whenever they died.
- What if it's not that Ghost Crowe traveled through time but rather that Cole is both a medium AND pre-cog medium, meaning he can communicate with, channel and summon ghosts from his own future. So he communicates with the ghost of a man he will kill in the future.
- No time travel needed. It's established that ghosts see what the want to see. Both Cole and Crowe wanted to see that they were alive, so they both created this mutual world where Crowe was taking care of Cole's problem. Cole lives with his mom (who may also be dead) and Crowe haunts the basement of his own house. Everyone sees what they want, and Crowe's wife goes on with her life. BTW, it may also be that there are other ghosts watching Crowe, Cole, the mother and the wife and seeing what they want, too. They would be the audience.
Crowe isn't really dead.
His wife really is just mad at him, but the discovery that Cole really could see the dead made him think he was, putting him under a great deal of stress, and triggering a super power (either invisibility or teleportation).- Try it this way: Crowe did get shot, but he survived. It's not like he got shot in the heart, there's a chance he could have lived. So now it's next year, and his career is ruined because word gets out about his former patient going psychotic. He's obsessed with redeeming himself, and he secretly "helps" Cole despite his license being revoked. His wife hates him for ignoring her in favor of Cole (forgetting his anniversary etc.) All the original interpretations of her scenes were correct. He so much wants to help Cole and to believe his wife loves him, but the only way to do so is to buy into Cole's hallucinations, even though they are only hallucinations. Soon he starts hallucinating too, at first "hearing" the ghost on the tape (a conveinent explanation that relieves him of guilt for failing with the other boy, and shows him how to redeem himself with Cole) and then at the end believing himself to be dead. When his wife says "Why did you leave me?" she's referring to him abandoning her in favor of his crazy belief in ghosts and obsessing over Cole. She's watching their wedding video to remember happier times. He can't face that, just like he can't face failure with the other boy or Cole, so the rest of the scene is his hallucination. She has his wedding ring because he forgot it, being selfish and obsessed, and she's throwing it on the floor in disgust.
- It's worth noting that Crowe got shot in the stomach, which is a death sentence. The acid gets out and starts eating away at the surrounding tissue.
The movie is really a horror/mystery remake of either North or Drop Dead Fred
Let's think about this;1. In North, Elijah Wood has an imaginary friend played by Bruce Willis that no one else can see and that tries to get him to work out his own demons.
2. With Drop Dead Fred, it's the same story, but without the Willis connection and more of a horror movie style]] to it to begin with.
All M. Night really had to do was swap out the imaginary friend angle with the twist everyone already knows and you get the same basic logic... and a much better movie.
- In any case, Bruce Willis's character(s) in North was NOT invisible to everyone but North. For instance, in Texas the other workers at the ranch introduce him and speak of him, saying things like, "He's killed for less than that."
- It's actually a remake of a story from Are you Afraid of the Dark? no...seriously
The Poisoned Girl also saw dead people.
She goes to Cole to enlist his help in telling her dad how she died. The only explanation I can think of for her awareness was that she saw ghosts while she was alive, and that grants you awareness as a ghost. It also provides a motive for why her mother killed her: Stepford Smiler Mommy couldn't stand having a little girl who was so... different.- The only explanation.... other than the fact that she's still haunting their house and can watch her mother doing this to the sister now.
The woman in the jewelry store also saw dead people.
She starts talking about the previous owner of a ring whom she's never met or even seen a picture of having "chestnut eyes" as both her fiance and Crowe's wife look at her as if they think she's crazy.- That'd be kinda funny if the sixth sense was a fairly common ability in this universe.
The Suicidal Wife was just insane.
Her husband might have been a pretty okay guy, but she had emotional problems and was paranoid, suspecting him of cheating. She slit her wrists out of anger and jealousy, and the bruise on her face is from hitting herself on a hard surface after she collapsed from bloodloss.- The last thing she would have remembered in life was the pain of whacking her head on the bathroom sink as she fell regretting her decision. Hence the bruise forever wounds her psyche so it is part of her ghost.
The movie takes place in the same universe as Gunnerkrigg Court.
Cole is a medium or guide in training. It's all a Dying Dream or some sort of Purgatory for Crowe.
Cole doesn't exist (or, at least not the way Crowe perceives him). The whole thing was something Crowe needed to do to redeem himself, sort of like how he, as a ghost has to pass on. Perhaps his original patient did not really see ghosts and was just hopelessly mentally ill, but Crowe could not reconcile that and his mind or agents of the afterlife created this scenario for him. Cole's grandmother died in a horrible way.
Fridge Horror of the worst class, you know. All the other ghosts Cole sees had unpleasant and violent deaths (hanging, poisoning, shooting by accident, car crashes), so why does he see his grandmother? Well, because she was murdered or something like that.- Conversely, Cole only sees ghosts of people who had unfinished business that they wanted his help with. Most people who died peacefully in their sleep had reconciled things before they departed, but Cole's grandmother didn't, which was why she appeared to him.
- Or, the grandmother stayed to help the mother with Cole's burden. The mom comes to believe in Cole's "ghost sight" because Cole was able to tell his mom a secret that only the grandmother would have heard, after her death.
- Perhaps it is because of the grandmother Cole can see ghosts. She died with this one seemingly small regret that she never told her daughter she saw her dance, but now with the omniscient perspective of the afterlife she realizes this one little event has caused her daughter so much pain, pain the daughter is even passing on to the grandchild. The grandmother's spirit desperately tries to reach the daughter who won't hear her, but the grandchild, being a wide eyed kid is of open mind and while he can't quite hear his grandmother he begins listening and hearing other ghosts who are basically screaming louder in the pyschic plane.
The dead spirits specifically targeted and haunted Vincent.
They taunted and teased him and drove him crazy specifically to kill Crowe. It was all a gambit to get a psychologist onto the other side because the living psychologists weren't helping the people with the ability to help the dead move on. They were driving people with the gift away from helping the dead move on through medication and/or ignoring the gift. Vincent is Cole's Father.
Sear was Cole's Mother's Surname, otherwise he would have been known as Cole Grey. Both had the ability to see ghosts, the only difference being that Cole didn't express his. The relationship was probably a moment of peace for Vincent, because it kept his mind off not only his problems, but somewhat helped him cope Crowe's refusal to help him further. Vincent expressed his sometime after Cole was born. The result caused Lynn to be disturbed and divorced Vincent. Rather than tell Cole what really happened, the story of him running off with a Toll Booth Lady, was fabricated by Lynn, so to not cause any more trauma to Cole.The evidence to support this is the Following:- Both had similar backgrounds.
- They never want to be alone.
- It's kind of odd that they both see the same psychiatrist.
- Exactly what's odd about that though? They were basically the same age when they began seeing Cole (Donnie Wahlberg most definitely doesn't look 19 though).
The Poisoned Girl didn't pass On.
She liked Cole for being kind enough to help her expose the truth about her death and lingered at a distance. She's waiting for his time to die so she could have company in the after life. Unbreakable and Split share the same universe as The Sixth Sense.
Now, it seems rather implausible, considering Unbreakable and Split (as well as the upcoming Glass) all take place in a comic book style universe. However, even iconic universes created by DC and Marvel even have supernatural heroes (being supernaturally powered, have magic abilities or are in tune with the supernatural around them). Ghost Rider (Marvel), Doctor Stephen Strange (Marvel), John Constantine (DC) and Zatanna (DC) are proof of this. It could be possible that Cole Sear is actually a super himself, and his super ability is to see ghosts, who help him find clues to the crimes they were victims of (this would explain his big "hero" moment where Cole goes to Kyra Collins' funeral, following her ghost and finding the tape that exposes Kyra was purposefully being poisoned by the mother, exposing the crime that killed her). Essentially, he is a super with supernatural abilities as well, but unlike David, his abilities is that of seeing ghosts.