Headscratchers / The Boy

• Why is Brahms so strong? He has been living inside the walls without sunlight and eating leftovers since he was 8 years old, shouldn't he be physically weakened and/or stunted by the time the movie takes place?
  • Possibly he has access to the roof and can get some fresh air and sunshine when nobody's around to spot him up there.
  • And it's entirely likely he eats normally most of the time. He does have his own refrigerator and stove, after all.
  • Yet he is badly burnt and presumably never received any medical attention. Would he not have succumbed to some sort of bacterial infection?.
  • It's possible that he gets to move around the house more freely when it's just him and his parents at home, and he mostly stays in the attic when they have company or servants in the house. Maybe he uses that time to exercise.
• How did the Heelshires get all those passages built without drawing attention? There's no way those were part of the initial construction.
  • Older British mansions sometimes had servants' passages that were designed to be all but invisible to the wealthy inhabitants and their guests. Depending on when it was built, the house might also have been equipped with secret hiding spaces for use by smugglers, spies, rebels, and/or whichever religion was being persecuted at the time. The electricity and plumbing could've been installed later on, perhaps during WWII as a fallback shelter in the event of invasion.
  • Never mind how the hidden areas were built: how was Brahms able to remain so completely undetectable as he was living there? Even if he has his own bathroom hidden away as well as his kitchenette, you'd think his need to shower, cook, dispose of garbage, and/or use the toilet would create enough sounds from the plumbing and smells from the stove to suggest that somebody's around.
• Um, so Brahms is the one whose supposed to be the Big Bad but I can't help but feel like the Heelshires were more deserving of that title. I'm not saying its always the case but generally speaking children don't just turn evil or "odd" on their own. Plus there's that whole fire thing that never gets explained. Did the Heelshires set it to kill him? If so no wonder Brahms is Axe-Crazy.
  • 6 Year Old Michael Myers pre-reboot would like to have a word with you.
• Why is it assumed that Brahms has killed several nannies before Greta? His parents privately ask him if he'll accept her, and tell Greta that he's rejected many nannies before her (probably because they weren't young or pretty enough). Furthermore, you'd think Malcolm would know if many of their nannies had disappeared or died, and he'd say something about it to Greta. So how come it's "implied" that she's not his first victim?
  • I never got any implication that he killed anybody other than the young girl, really would be questionable how that would have gone unnoticed by the outside world.
  • He said "I'll kill him just like the others!". Remember the nannies that got "rejected" by him? He definitely killed more people than Cole and the girl.
  • It's very possible that previously the Heelshires sought out women with no living family who would come around asking questions if one of them disappeared.
• Why did Brahms kill Cole but not Malcolm when he came out of the wall or when he knocked Malcolm out earlier? It's obvious he didn't think (and was clearly correct) that Greta had not escaped yet and he did not see her watching until she called for Malcolm. Was it because he saw Malcolm and Greta making out earlier (it was without a doubt him watching them through the keyhole and who turned on the music) and knew Malcolm loved Greta genuinely unlike Cole who was an abusive Jerkass? Because that does not seem like him.
  • Possibly Brahms assumed that having Malcolm around was the only thing stopping Greta from leaving altogether. Also, Malcolm had been delivering supplies to the household for years; it's reasonable to assume that Brahms thought of him as somebody he "knew", even if they'd never met face to face. Cole, conversely, was an intruder who'd destroyed the doll through which Brahms had attained what little (indirect) social relationship existed between Greta and himself.
• It's been announced that a sequel is being made and the movie did end with a Sequel Hook, yet it raises questions like: How can Brahms still be there? Surely Greta would've told the authorities that he was there. And how does this new family not know what happened to the Heelshires since by now their bodies must've been discovered?
  • Well she did think (but we know she was wrong) she killed Brahms, so maybe she felt she didn't need to alert the authorities.
  • If the house is up for sale, then the Heelshires' deaths are probably known. But it's likely that nobody knows why they committed suicide.
  • The movie is released now, and all I will say is that it basically takes place in another continuity.

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