I guess I didn't react as negatively as you did to the ending. I did think it was disappointing (#2 especially), but I don't think that the entire movie was undone by it. It just seemed like there was a move to soften the idea of dead children. I think that the basement scene could have been much much more scarier. Instead, we just have the plot neatly tied up in the end.
But like Pan's Labyrinth, I think there was a dual side to things. Those being these:
Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):| Like the little girl in PL, we have to wonder whether the ghosts were real or not. It could be all the imaginings of the mother desperate to find her son and turning to the supernatural to explain things. All the games with finding things could have just as easily been explained as Simon trying to have his mom play with him. But the game went horribly wrong when he got trapped and fell down the stairs killing himself. With the little girl in PL, you wonder if the faun and fairies and such were real or just her imagination. Regardless, in the end of both, you see a bittersweet ending where the main character dies, but in their minds they are happy. |
I think that this seems to be the style of things for Spanish thrillers. I don't know if this movie even counts as horror at all.