Tear Jerker / The Boy

• Greta's backstory. She married a man named Cole who turned out to be abusive, both mentally and physically. One night, when Greta was pregnant, he beat her so badly that it caused her to miscarry. Think about it: Greta is so terrified of Cole that she took a job in another country just to escape him. This could be especially heartbreaking to those who have felt the effects of domestic abuse.
• Brahms apologizing to Greta for his misbehavior by leaving her a sandwich outside her bedroom door. The innocently plaintive way he says "I promise I'll be good" is what makes the scene saddening. Also doubles as Heartwarming.
• Greta pleading with Brahms for help when Cole arrives at the mansion and is demanding she return home with him the next morning. She may put up a brave show when she's around Cole, but you can hear the desperation and fear finally coming to light during this scene.
  Greta: Brahms…..I'm not going to leave you. (chokes back tears) But I really need your help.
• In a way, Brahms' backstory. Even if he did kill the young girl (and it is heavily implied he did), he was eight years old and suffered a horrible fire while his parents managed to get away. The desperate way he promises Greta that he'll be good if she comes out and plays with him implies that, deep in his mind, he really just wants someone to care for him. Perhaps if the Heelshires had gotten their child some therapy instead of hiding him away in the hidden rooms and indulging his every demand, things could have turned out better. Sadly whatever was wrong with Brahms went untreated and he grew up to kill multiple people.
• Of course, the Heelshires life was very miserable indeed. Lost their eight year old to a fire, and he either killed a little girl before that or was wrongly blamed for her death. Then they hid him away from age eight and spent the next two decades going through the motions of taking care of a doll to satisfy their mentally unwell and violent son's needs, only to finally "give" him Greta before killing themselves out of guilt. This was a terribly unhappy family.
• Greta finds comfort in the idea that the doll is possessed by Brahms' ghost because it gives her hope that her baby is still alive in some form but Brahms was just hiding in the walls & ends up trying to murder her after turning out to have a perverted obsession with her. To make matters worse, she thinks she killed him.