The interesting thing is that the wallpaper is not continuous and is broken at the edges of the hidden door.
Also, since Thomas was a monster who was never to wander about as a normal person, the door could only be opened from the outside. There was no need to "wedge" anything, there is no relief to wedge things in.
Simon left the door ajar, planted the clues, pushed mom, hid, then Laura puts the posts against the door and closes it, Simon is trapped.
From that point onward, Laura starts hallucinating, seeing Simon in the cave and all. The real Simon is bidding his time waiting to be found, but at night he realizes he won't be found, tries to open the door, it's closed!
Despair, banging against it, rebounding, hitting the rail, breaking it, falling down. Thud. He fell on his head and died a little after. Those noises were felt by Laura and Carlos.
The medium session is real though. There is no way for the medium to know that five children had been poisoned in that room. Everything that happens there has to be real, therefore if supernatural is allowed to enter the film at that point, the supernatural version may be true for the rest.
---
Space For Sale.
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slimjimpui
15 years ago
"The medium session is real though. There is no way for the medium to know that five children had been poisoned in that room. Everything that happens there has to be real, therefore if supernatural is allowed to enter the film at that point, the supernatural version may be true for the rest"
Here's a counter arguement.
There's a moment where we are given to doubt the validity of the seance. When Aurora is walking around the hallway(mid-regression), just before the sound of children screaming starts to emanate from the equipment, we see Enrique reach over to press a button of some kind. We don't see the button or the piece of equipment that it is attached to but we do hear the sound of it being clunked down followed by what appears to be additional tape playback and then the unearthly noises begin shortly after(I might add that all this is minutes after Enrique has initiated the actual recording). This may not prove anything in terms of whether the medium is geniune, but it certainly gives us grounds to question what is going on there.
Furthermore, one might indeed question how Aurora could know that there were five children who died, but one must also consider the following:
In the scene that precedes the regression sequence, we see Laura confide in Senor Balaban about how she believes Simon has been abducted by Tomas who has "been dead for over 30 years". The scene ends when he suggests involving the medium but one has to ponder this question: what else did she reveal about her former home after this? She may have let slip that she used to live there with her 5 friends- all of whom she never met again, prompting the ghosthunters to do a little research- when they found no evidence that the five children ever existed this may have been their cue to introduce the supernatural element into their "seance". Plus, if Laura tagged on to the possiblity that the five children Aurora seems to be talking to could have been her friends, then the ghosthunters would improve their chances of repeat business(had Carlos and Pilar not intervened) and any further appointments would provide only vague, inconclusive misinformation about anonymous characters.
You'll notice that Aurora's regression does not reveal anything about Simon's whereabouts/condition and maybe this is because the medium isn't "tuned in" to his "aura", on the other hand, it just might be because this is an ongoing police investigation which they cannot touch with a bargepole as any misinformation would lead to criminal prosecution, whereas if they focus on something that may or may not have happened in the past(and remember, Aurora does not specify when the children were from- the events could be attached to any period of the Orphanage's history throughout Franco's rule)then they are safe to continue their "investigations"
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calimie_niphredil
14 years ago
Well said. When I first watched it I believed the medium but on later reviews, I think she wasn't legit. She doesn't really say anything of value at all other than being very spooky.
"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
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slimjimpui
15 years ago
"Also, since Thomas was a monster who was never to wander about as a normal person, the door could only be opened from the outside. There was no need to "wedge" anything, there is no relief to wedge things in."
The door to Tomas's room was bereft of its handles and spindle, otherwise it was a conventional door. Without the scaffold poles wedged against it, all Tomas had to do was find something in the basement that could act as a makeshift spindle to open the door- maybe he actually did attempt this at some point(we do see a moment in the super8 footage showing him out in the open as one of the older employees snatches him back inside) prompting the Principle to utilize something heavy enough to weigh the door shut to the inside, but also something that could be removed when access was required from the outside.
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