PLOT SUMMARY: Jennifer copes not only with an unwanted pregnancy but also the fact that her new house may be haunted.
Truth be told, there hasn’t been a horror movie in quite some time that has the capacity to shake your emotions and make you start seeing things a little differently. The dawn of realization, an epiphany, of your own self and what you thought to be justified, can suddenly be twisted and torn, revealing the dark truth that you never thought could be possible.
How many times have we let our bad experiences affect our lives? How many times have we given ourselves the permission to be angry at things that have been so unfair to us?
I mean, all of us, at one point or another, have experienced our dreams being shattered. We thought we could remain resentful about it. If you’re angry, you should just be allowed to be, right?
The hatred we carry in our hearts towards people who have misused us, it is akin to poison. Sometimes, it isn’t easy letting go of anger, resentment and hatred because the people in question who have put you in that position where you have to feel a myriad of emotions show little guilt.
For them, what they have done is right. What they are doing is for the betterment of our lives. We can be bitter all we want, but they think they know what is best for us. And so, we have to give in, compromise and live with shadows of our former selves, amid the fragments of broken dreams.
From the outside, we are okay, we are coping. On the inside, our hate and bitterness is slowly giving birth to negativity that is going to consume us.
Except, what we don’t know, is that the negativity is also consuming every positive thing around us.
The House on Pine Street is one such story. It’s about being beaten down and forced to compromise in a situation that is far from ideal.
THE HOUSE ON PINE STREET Movie Plot
Jennifer is a woman pregnant with a baby she doesn’t want, moving to a place she doesn’t want to live in, and married to a man who doesn’t understand what she wants.
When they move into the new house, Jennifer tries to cope with her new surroundings.
Upon her husband Luke’s insistence, she even tries to mingle with the guests at the housewarming party her overbearing mother has held on her behalf.
Yet, something is missing. Jennifer isn’t happy and she has to cope with too many unwanted things at once. She is at breaking point but manages to hold up a facade for the sake of her husband.
That is when strange things start happening in the house. Closet doors keep opening, boxes keep moving and Jennifer is certain something is wrong. But no one believes her- she is after all pregnant and is confused because of her hormones. That’s what everyone says.
Of course, something more sinister is going on which is only revealed in the end. Until then, Jennifer must cope with a family who is unsympathetic to her plight and a family friend who is more interested in stringing her along rather than explaining what is really going on.
THE HOUSE ON PINE STREET Ending Explained with Spoilers
As it turns out, the ‘ghost’ in the house is supposed to be a manifestation of Jennifer’s negative feelings towards her life and that is because the people she is surrounded by, are completely apathetic towards her.
I suppose this movie is supposed to be a learning lesson in a weird sort of way. We must deal with our negative thoughts before they overwhelm us and destroy the people around us. However, while watching the movie, I felt Jennifer was right to feel the way she did.
She didn’t want to move, but her husband forced her to. Later on, he even goes ahead and hides the fact that he has no intention of ever moving to Chicago.
She didn’t want the baby but was forced to do so and even if it is the right thing to do, nobody seems to try to help her with her pregnancy symptoms and let her get psychiatry help.
In the end, it is the manifestation of her anger and negativity that actually helps her sort out her problems. The only way she could move back to Chicago was if her husband was out of the picture and unfortunately, that is what happens. Left alone in the house, the husband is thrown out of the window and instantly killed.
Jennifer is in the meantime with one of her mother’s psychic friends who is revealing the truth to her and I felt he was really obnoxious. He appeared to be passing judgment on her, demanding that she behave in a certain way, telling her she couldn’t be angry at things in her life when she had every right to be.
That has always been one of my peeves- when people expect you to behave normally when you feel anything but. You could be going through the most difficult of times, but people still expect you to keep a straight face and act all perky.
No! If someone is going through a bad phase and they are forced to do something they don’t want to, sometimes the only way to get over it is by getting angry. It is a natural emotion. Get angry, scream, cry, whatever, and then one can get it all of their systems.
In the case of this movie, I feel like perhaps we weren’t actually supposed to sympathize with Jennifer.
That we were supposed to condemn her for not falling into plans that her family was making for her. However, by the time the end credits rolled in, I felt a bit happy for Jennifer. It was bad that Luke died the way he did, but at least Jennifer could get somewhat of the life she wanted for herself.
It may have been the house that helped her. Maybe it was a collector of bad energy that was left behind. The next resident may overpower it with positive energy. Or maybe more negative energy in it will gather within it and destroy more lives.
That is the House on Pine Street. Anything can happen inside it. It all depends on your energy.
Scare Scale: 3/5
ReplyDeleteHaunted House Scary Ghost House
I loved this movie
ReplyDeleteYours is an excellent analysis of this movie -- spot-on. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie so unsettling in its abstract metaphysics. This is a horror film which had me looking for a supernatural entity in every closet, in every dark corner, under every bed, only to realize after Luke's unfortunate death that Jennifer's own psyche was in fact the supernatural entity; the spectre, the wraith; Casper's very own arch-nemesis. A brilliant plot with a not-so-far-fetched plausibility.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was her manifesting this all along, OR...the house really was haunted. Maybe the chiropractor psychic refused to believe it was haunted because surely his loved one would have returned to him. It would be less painful to believe there were no such things as ghosts.
ReplyDeleteOr, the ghosts showed themselves to the most vulnerable, in ths case being the wife. She was as selfish as her mom. She showed this a few times. When she was angry with the psychic for "wasting her time" even though, he's the one who came to her. When she didn't even so much as have one nice thing to say to the neighbor when she opened up to her about her daughters, even the way she believed everyone was staring at her. THis is probably why she had a breakdown when she found out about her pregnancy. She was as selfish as her mom. When she had the baby, she found some happiness, but at this point Luke was the weaker one, so the ghost showed himself to Luke.
As I said in my previous comment I agree wholeheartedly but one thing kind of still bothers me. If it is all energy, what was that black shadow figure in the crawlspace when she went down and saw the handprint on the floor? What was her friends little boy seeing? Remember he was waving hello to it and looked behind her, saying it was a ghost. It was in his room that night he and his mother stayed over which is why he was awake at 3 am sitting in the hallway. I believe in energy and us manifesting thing's and the effects our energy has on the people around us but I think these thing's are a little different. Can our negative energy produce a shadow person? Throw a man out a window? Throw her around like a rag doll? Why didn't anything happen to her mother?? I feel like she hated her most.
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