I have now become the last person on the planet to have seen this movie. One question. In one scene, Cole was upset at his teacher looking at him, and tells the teacher that the teacher used to stutter, and calls him a Stuttering Stanley.
How did Cole know this?
Great flick BTW.
I think the ghosts told him.
That was my understanding too. He sees the ghosts, they talk to him.
But he wasn’t trying to talk to the ghosts yet at the time this happened.
And it seems like a kind of unusual thing for the hung or burnt ghosts to open up with. “Hi. I’m dead. And your teacher used to stutter.”
(I tried to search in case this had been asked and answered, but without any success.)
Wild guess: Maybe there was originally a scene that explains that, but it got cut? And so we’re left with the “stuttering Stanley” part but not the expo.
BTW, I think “Hi. I’m dead. And your teacher used to stutter.” is an excellent afterlife pickup line. 
I think it all goes along with the whole idea of a “sixth sense”. Maybe, by having that scene in there, the director’s trying to show that the kid is granted even more by his sense than just seeing dead people. Perhaps he can, to use a kind of dumb-sounding phrase, see “ghosts of the past”, i.e. things that haunt individual people? Just a guess.
I think the fact that we are “guessing” about this illustrates how out of place this scene was in an otherwise phenomenally crafted film. Of course, I’m sure someone will chime in and let us know how clueless we are.
Well the DVD version has all the originally cut scenes, and I don’t remember one dealing with that. I think Cole actually saw some ghosts teasing the teacher, remember how some of the ghosts talked to Cole like he was someone else since they didn’t realize they were dead? (like the woman in the kitchen talking to Cole as if he were the husband. ie:“look at what you made me do”)
Maybe the ghost of someone who used to tease his teacher was actually teasing Cole, thinking Cole was the teacher as a child. I need to watch the scene again to be sure, but I seem to remember Cole yelling at a ghost to stop looking at him, not the teacher.
Did a bit of a search, and got no satisfactory answer. Many people think Cole was “channeling” the teacher. I don’t know about that.
Another thing I wasn’t clear on. What was the deal with the basement door? Why was it always locked, and at the end, there was a table in front of it? They kept making a big deal out of Malcolm trying it, and then having to get out his keys.
A friend of mine actually wrote one of the origional scripts for this film, however in his version the child saw mullets on everyone: “I see mullets!”
And at the end of the film, Bruice Willis takes his hat off… Da da da…
However, it was canned. Apparently dead people have more of an appeal than mullets.
I have a vague feeling that I’ve mentioned this on the board before… but I can’t place where. Oh well.
Something to do with the rules of being dead. He can’t affect anything in the real world without very strong emotion being involved (breaking the window). You never actually see him open the door to the basement. His wife locked it and left all his stuff down there in an effort to try and get on with her life. He doesn’t actually have the key on him either. They sort of explained it after the movie. When they go over the rules.
c_goatSo how did he get down there?
Didn’t he notice?
No he didn’t notice. That’s part of his problem in not knowing that he’s dead. He kind of “blinks” in and out. He’s not constantly aware. Part of being dead. All of the ghosts Cole sees are like that. They’re there one minute and gone the next.
Yeah, about the “blinking in and out” c-goat mentions-- there’s a line where Cole tells Bruce Willis that “They only see what they want to see.” So my guess was the Bruce was just getting into the basement by sort of willing himself to be there (or however it is ghosts motorvate), but conveniently forgot that he never really did open the door or use his keys.
I also wondered about stutter Stanley…
I was lucky to be one of the first people in Austria who saw the film… I saw it in a sneak preview 
So nobody knew how it ended and there were a lot fo “uuhs and aaahs” and most people were almost angry that Willis was dead.
But Ursi, a friend who was there too, knew all along. She always knows everything before it happens…
she s got a sixth movie sense… but she doesnt see dead people… as far as I know…
dodgy
I got that the ghosts were sort of sticking up for Cole in the classroom scene. If I remember right, Cole had just volunteered info about the hangings at the school. The teacher dismissed him and told him he was wrong. What I imagined was the ghosts sort of saying, “Never mind him, he’s just stuttering Stanley.” etc… Does that make sense to anyone else??
I had the same take as Poysyn about the stuttering Stanley scene. The ghosts gave him the info because the teacher had just called him a liar about the hangings.
As for the door locked thing - my take was that Bruce Willis kept opening it up and his wife would find it opened and lock it. And at the end, thoroughly freaked out that the door she kept locking mysteriously reopens, she pushed furniture in front of it.
I disagree. I think the table was there all along and was used to reveal the secret to the audience. I know that’s when it finally hit me when I saw it. Well, it confirmed it anyway…
Well, remember that Cole says the ghosts only see what they want to see. So Malcolm never sees the table in front of the door. His wife probably had no reason or desire to go down there, so she blocked it off.
Malcolm also never notices that no one other than Cole talks to him, again, only noticing what he wants, or what makes things seems normal, like denial i guess.