As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- What's the deal with Crain's portrait? Why is there a skull underneath the top layer of paint?
- We know the child-ghosts can manipulate lightweight things like curtains and bed sheets. Maybe when the "Welcome Home Eleanor" message was cleaned away, they manipulated a few drops of the paint thinner to smear away Crane's painted face, in such a way that the drips of dissolved paint just happened to form a skull-image.
- Crain probably wanted his portrait to be anatomically correct, so he had the artist draw the skeleton and skull first, and then illustrate his face over a second layer of paint. He was insane after all.
- What was the point of the "hand holding" scene if they removed all the context so it doesn't make sense? Indeed, the line seems to be dubbed in as her mouth doesn't appear to be moving when she "says" it, so I have to wonder why they bothered.
- The hand holding scene was indeed present in the original shooting script on page 86 with a similar context to the original scene in the book and film, but was probably cut. You could argue that it is in the actual movie, but there was just no vocal build-up to it. Nell's hand was being held the whole time, she just didn't audibly say anything about it before she realized no one was holding her hand, which is true to the original: Nell didn't say anything about her hand being held. She thought it.
- Why does the "Gate To Hell" actually work at the end if it's just a decoration?
- Crain was an evil bastard who was supposed to go to Hell after his death, but his spirit lingered on as a ghost. The Gate to Hell works because he's now doubted himself and his sins have been exposed. It weakened his connection to the mortal plane, and now Hell rose up to claim his soul, and those forces used the Gate decoration as their conduit. Everything in the house is touched by the supernatural.
- Near the end, when Luke was in the fireplace and he sees the lion head coming toward him to bite off his head he just stood there and got his head chomped off. Why didn't he just duck? He should've ducked! Why didn't he duck?
