"Family hanging out" would be impossible for a little girl to perform, even if (or especially if) family was drugged.
I agree, that one just bugged me as totally impossible. It COULD have been done if the family had been lying bound on the ground with the ropes around their necks when the branch was cut - the end result would have been the same when that branch was cut, but there was no possible way for the girl to stand up a grown adult and be able to tie that rope to the tree branch if they weren't conscious - in which case, why the hell would an adult let a kid put a noose around their neck?
Weren't the little kids possessed by Bughuul? I always assumed it was possible because she was possessed by an evil god.
I agree with you. That's how I thought the Pool Party video was possible; there's no way a young kid should be able to drag an adult AND a weight into the pool.
We know the ghosts of previous victims pulled Ellison down out of the attic. Possibly they'd also helped set up those of the previous murders that required more physical strength than a single child could produce.
The sequel seems to quietly answer this. Remember when Deputy So and So hits Zach with his car, and Zach gets up like nothing occured? This seems to imply that once a kid is within Bughuul's control he gives them the superhuman abilities to pull off their murders
Here's an even more stupid thing. Besides the fact that writing is not the job you rely on to pay the bills in general, exactly how fast was he planning on writing that book? Because it was probably going to take at least six months to a year to write and edit it before he could try to sell it. That's not even considering the fact that generally you sell nonfiction on proposal, as in BEFORE you start writing it.
Ellison is clearly coming from a very successful first novel that gave him an inflated ego. He doesn't care about details, if he gets the story he just thinks it will work out. Plus, he's obviously got enough money to keep himself going at least for a couple of months, the whole point of him not wanting to write other kinds of books or get other kinds of jobs is a major plot point.
He's living off the royalties of his last successful novel, and\or he may have an advance from his publisher. It's not uncommon for publishing companies to give authors (especially famous authors or authors who have just come off a successful novel) advances of up to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for their next book.
This may verge into WMG territory, but how exactly did the murders of the families start, and how was Bughuul spreading his influence before the invention of video tape?
Vincent D'Onofrio explained that the worship of Bughuul began using simple drawings and frescos in ancient times. It was only in modern times that he got with the times and used video tape.
Not only would it be extremely hard for a little kid to hold a video camera and push a lawnmower at the same time, but how did they do it at night and not have the noise alert the neighbors?
1) It looked like they fastened the camera to the lawnmower somehow, probably with duct tape or something, it would really not be hard to do. 2) You can't see other houses or even lights in the movie. Plenty of large houses, especially in small towns, can be very far away from each other, enough that if everybody is inside their houses they probably WON'T hear it. 3) Even if they did hear, so what? Somebody is running a lawnmower at night. It's a bit annoying but nobody is going to make an issue of it unless they are in very close proximity to the house - which is obviously not the case.
What would happen if a childless couple move into a house Bughuul is haunting?
A few likely possibilites;
He would wait for them to have children
He would try and scare them out of the house in hopes a couple with children will replace them.
He would just ignore them, and wait for a couple with children to move into one of the other houses he is haunting.
He would kill them (either himself or through possessing one of them) simply to be rid of them
He would compel them to make and spread images of himself for the rest of their lives
What happens if a family moves into a house but doesn't watch the Super 8 reels?
They would be ignored, most likely. The real activity only starts when Ellison finds and watches the reels.
Or Bughuul becomes more persistent in the placing the film reels where they can be easily found.
What would happen if a family with teenagers moves into a house? Does Bughuul have an age limit?
Bughuul explicitly takes the youngest in the family, and one imagines that younger teenage siblings might also count.
No, he doesn't. The oldest corrupted kid from the first Sinister killed his clearly younger brother and looked to be about 14 (movie - Sleepy Time). Likewise, in the second movie, Zach is older than Dylan. Likewise, looking at some of the movies in the sequel, it appears as though older children were under Bughuul's influence there as well: in the Fishing Trip video, looking at the other two kids, Ted is likely a middle child, while in Christmas Morning, Emma appears to be the oldest.
Why, after several families killed in such gruesome ways, nobody tought of searching the house and watch the films, just in case the movies could be of any help to the investigation? Isn't it, like, the first thing the police would do?
It's likely Bughuul would remove the films from the house during police investigations to prevent them from being found/watched like that.
This is referenced at the start of the movie when Ellison notes that the box of films is absent from the crime scene photos of the attic.
In the sequel, it’s clearly established that Clint has an extraordinary amount of influence in the county. That being said, how was he able to call an “emergency hearing” to gain custody of the twins? The police is possible, but the courts, too? Wouldn’t an emergency custody hearing require that both parents be there barring any restraining orders or arrests? Why didn’t Courtney get a lawyer from out of town? The whole custody thing just boggles my mind.
Courtney doesn’t seem to know much about the justice system, and most of what he was doing seemed like scare tactics. Considering how powerful he is, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for him to bribe someone to make fake documents to scare her into coming back. He told her that he would drop the case if she came back, which is hardly legal, so he was probably using her lack of knowledge to scare her (which is definitely an abuse tactic in Real Life).
In the sequel, the priest's attitude is very strange. Many modern priests do not believe or at least doubt the existence of supernatural evil, and it would be understandable if he did not want to deal with the Bughuul case on that basis. But the attitude of "Yes, I believe in the existence of demons, but it's impossible to fight them and prayer doesn't help at all here" is absurd from the point of view of a Christian priest. Another thing is that it seems to be in line with the truth, given that Bughuul has no problem acting in the church.
