#like ok. the rumor monster thing is still horrifying and all dont get me wrong

[vaugarde]

oh. this is another “the villain has completely correct and good motives but goes about it in a creepy extreme way that makes them ‘just as bad’ and the heroes gotta fight to keep the status quo!” plot. cool.

[blookmallow]

ok that was mostly really good but what a BULLSHIT ENDING

i WAS going to say this might’ve made me cry if i was in a more emotional state, stories where “the ghost was just Hurt and needed help and needed to be understood” absolutely fucking WRECK me and i was going to say “having a Mother be the one person who figured out what this abused, murdered child wanted, a mother finding her and making a connection with her and bringing her peace, is so good” and i was going to say “noah going from ‘really unpleasant guy i cant be bothered to remember who makes fun of her fears and wont take her seriously’ to ‘absolutely going fucking feral trying to save rachel’s life and going to ANY lengths to get through this together’ is SUCH GREAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT” but now im just fucking mad lmao

i never really like stories where it’s like.... a child is just Evil for no reason, like for one thing “idk its just evil” is boring (unless its like. disney villain musical number evil then its fun but u know) i dont think a child can be Just Evil, and especially when they set the parallel with the disabled kid like “sometimes your kid’s got Something Wrong With Them but you love them anyway” with “sometimes a kid’s just evil” / the implication that maybe her parents were right to murder her is SO fucked 

they had this beautiful moment of “this isn’t an evil monster, this is a child, this is a little girl who was maybe mentally unwell but that’s not her FAULT, and she was being abused by her father and was murdered by her mother and spent a week dying alone in a well knowing what her mother had done, she wanted to be found, she wanted someone to hear her, she wanted someone to understand her and it took a woman, a mother, to understand that and to FIND her” and then just threw it out for the shock value of “wait nope it’s not over she’s just evil and will keep killing people forever because she wants to spread her suffering to the world” 

i mean. i understand the particular horror in the “the only way to survive is to pass it to someone else” and maybe there’s some kind of “reporter realizes the cost of getting in other peoples’ business and reopening old wounds for the sake of a story; you want to share someone else’s pain, now you have to, now you have to share it with everyone or you’ll fucking die” message here but 

A) horror movies need to fucking realize they DONT HAVE TO HAVE A SHOCKER ENDING/A SAD ENDING ITS OKAY TO LET YOUR PROTAGONISTS SURVIVE ITS OK TO LET THEM HEAL ITS OK TO HAVE A RESOLUTION FOR ONCE HOLY SHIT

and B) that’s not what she was doing?? she mentions maybe doing a story on it but it was never about like, “if i solve this ill be famous/ill get a promotion” whatever she wanted to understand. she wanted to find out what happened. she wanted to protect her child, even if she couldn’t save herself, she wanted to save her son, so her motive was exactly what samara should have wanted, she should have been the perfect person to figure this out, she was trying to uncover the truth behind a child’s abuse and murder to bring that child peace and save her own child in the process 

and there was such potential for samara to communicate with aiden, a kid who’s different too, a kid who expresses in “unusual” ways like her, a kid who also has a rough time with his parents even if his situation isn’t nearly as bad

rachel wasn’t just trying to spread a rumor around, her motives were all in exactly the right place so why is she getting punished for it

or maybe THAT’S the point and it’s a “you tried to do everything right but now you’re being forced to spread evil and suffering anyway, even though that was the last thing you intended” i dont know. its bullshit and im mad but i still liked it up until that point enough to forgive it it was still. really good, despite the Massive Flaws :’| 

i gotta process for a while lmao

and i gotta watch the original to see if that clears anything up

i still dont understand why her parents got so fucked up about her. like. i guess anna kept miscarrying so her husband believed she wasn’t meant to have a child and straight away assumed something was Bad about samara. but why did anna kill her if she wanted her and loved her so much. what had she done at that point that was “bad” 

im guessing it was the weird pictures and stuff, which. ok the fact that they weren’t just weird drawings and were like. x ray things??? was maybe a sign of something supernaturally wrong and not just a kid who needs support for their mental illness But Still 

rachel realized this was just a mentally unwell kid who needed to be listened to finding a way to express herself that her parents decided meant she was evil and needed to die, and she was fucking horrified by that, she as a mother with a kid who is also “”different”” who she would do anything for realizing this child’s mother in the same situation chose to murder her kid

it could have been a powerful message if they hadn’t fucked it up with “lol just kidding she was evil actually” 

im also wondering if the husband maybe did something to his wife that was actively causing her to miscarry?? i dont know if thats a thing that can be done but he said she “wasn’t supposed” to have a child, samara said he loves the horses and not her, it seems like he didn’t want a child in the first place 

and i dont know why they said she was adopted?? i dont know. its 2 AM and now i gotta figure out how to get my brain to stop spinning in circles so i can sleep lmao