The Sixth Sense

[wallyboots]

In the film 'The Sixth Sense' when Haley Joel Osment goes to another kids party and they lock him in a cupboard at the top of a winding staircase with the ghost of a very angry man, what or who is the man? and why is he in the cubby hole? I'm sure they probably say in the film but I've never caught it.

[4getmenot]

Have only found this

In the next shot the camera is looking up through a winding staircase as a red balloon ascends to the top of the house. Red becomes an important marker of the supernatural in the film. In this sequence, Cole is also wearing a red sweater that is given prominence later in the narrative. The camera follows Cole as he begins to ascend the stairs, and stops when he does; a voice becomes audible on the soundtrack: �Is someone out there. Please, open this door, I can�t breathe.� Shyamalan provides the spectator with Cole�s point of view, revealing the attic door to be wide open. The voice, however, is asking Cole to unlock the door and let him out of the room. His trance is broken when Tommy Tommisino, the class bully, and Darren join him on the stairs. In a malicious move, the boys put him in the attic room, which frightens Cole into a state of immobility. Tension is created within the film�s world when the balloon that brought him upstairs bursts. The violence, for this episode, remains off-screen. Cole�s screams, bangs, and thumping audibly pierce the entire house, calling Lynn�s attention away from the first floor dining room. The spectator is invited to experience the moment as the mean-spirited boys and Lynn do, from outside the locked room. One of the inexplicable elements of this scene is the door. Lynn, trying desperately to get into the room, cannot open the door until the door unlocks itself. Did Cole lock himself in? If not, who did? Who inflicted the lashes on his body? These questions are not answered in the narrative. They remain an unexplained fantastic event.

[kempie]

More of a clue to the ghost's identity and situation is given by the line which immediately follows the one given in the account reproduced by 4getmenot:

"If you can hear me, open this door... I swear on my life I didn't take the master's horse!"