Boston Ghostbusters wrote: ↑March 29th, 2024, 10:14 pm This is going to be a bit morbid, but the first and second time watching... I saw it as an allegory for cutters or people who self-harm.
Part of it could be seen like this, too. I didn't see this so much, but to me, more than anything, it had a lot of parallels to dangerous things that can happen when kids get into trouble with strangers that they're keeping secret from their parents. I think it is still what bothers me about the direction of the storyline in the movie... like we're supposed to see Melody as sympathetic, and she is (to an extent), but she did some
really messed up stuff. Some of the scenes, particularly when Gary is talking to the empty room and then the movie cuts to Melody appearing over Phoebe's shoulder before going to the lab, could be read as a bit, uh..groomer-ish, and the ghost machine stuff made it even darker. This is also part of why I lean toward the more "friendship" interpretation - anything else,
specifically in the context the movie sets up, could end up in really negative territory.
Yes, Melody was reluctant to bring Phoebe to Garraka, and she cried a little when Phoebe got possessed, but she did it all anyway and
still took forever to acknowledge that she was wrong. I'm guessing that Garraka couldn't communicate with the other ghosts until Nadeem removed the orb from the brass room... so probably not all that long ago. In that short time, did Melody ever question whether or not Garraka was lying or manipulating her (he didn't really seem to be controlling her like the others, but this could have been clearer), or did she just hear this demon voice one day and decided that he was probably right? This is the type of stuff that could have a little more explanation if they insisted on making her such an important character.
I actually thought her first appearance playing chess was kind of funny. They could have left it there, perhaps with a short discussion about what Phoebe does as a "job," and just made it a moment that caused Phoebe to question more about what ghosts think about and feel.