2022’s Watcher arrived on Netflix on Feb. 25 and quickly shot to the streamer’s top 10.
The film stars Maika Monroe (who fans will recognize from other horror hits like It Follows and Longlegs) as Julia, an American expat who moves to Bucharest to live with her boyfriend, Francis.
Shortly after arriving, she notices that a man who lives in an apartment across the street seems to watch her from his window every night. Even weirder, she starts seeing him all over town. Julia tries to tell her boyfriend and even the police that she is being stalked, but no one believes her.
Even scarier, a serial killer known as the Spider is on the loose in Bucharest. His M.O. is to stalk women and then eventually sneak into their homes and decapitate them. Julia feels like this can’t be a coincidence, but without help from anyone else, she’s left feeling scared and isolated.
Adding to Julia’s worry, one night, she hears her next-door neighbor Irina scream, followed by a loud thud and then silence. Julia causes a scene among her neighbors and demands that someone open Irina’s door so she can check on her. When Julia finally gets into her apartment, Irina is nowhere to be found.
The final moments of Watcher reveals the true identity of the infamous killer and Julia as his next target. But what happens leading up to the finale, and does Julia survive?
Here is everything to know about the shocking ending of Watcher.
What happens leading up to the finale of Watcher?
In the moments leading up to the movie’s finale, Julia joins her boyfriend Francis at a fancy work event, and the town is abuzz with news that the Spider has supposedly been caught. But Julia, knowing what she’s experienced with their neighbor, isn’t so convinced. She still feels like someone is watching her.
Trying to lighten the mood, Francis jokes with his colleagues in Romanian and makes a nasty comment about Julia. She isn’t fluent in Romanian but understands enough to know he essentially said it’s all in her head. Angry, she walks out and heads home.
Julia gets on the subway, and once again sees her neighbor, revealing that he’s still following her. Then, for the first time in the movie, he speaks to her, saying her concerns have all been a big misunderstanding and that he wants an apology.
But as he talks, Julia looks at a grocery bag he has sitting next to him that has the faint outline of a human head inside. At the next stop, Julia runs off the train toward home.
What happens to Julia at the end of Watcher?
In the film’s finale, Julia gets back to her apartment and begins packing her suitcases, intending to leave. After seeing the head in her neighbor’s bag, she knows she’s been right the entire time and is irate that her boyfriend doesn’t believe her.
As she packs, Julia hears loud music coming from Irina’s apartment, even though she’s been missing for days. Julia goes to investigate the noise and finds Irina’s door is unlocked. When she walks inside, she sees Irina’s body collapsed on a chair, missing its head. Before Julia has a chance to escape, her neighbor sneaks up on her and knocks her unconscious.
When Julia wakes up, she finds that she’s still in Irina’s apartment and her neighbor, the Spider, is standing over her. She feels all hope is lost, but then she hears her boyfriend. He’s in their bedroom, which shares a wall with Irina’s apartment. The scene cuts to Francis seeing the open suitcases and realizing that Julia is planning to leave him. She tries to scream out for Francis but the killer cuts her throat, making her unable to speak.
She tries to run away but collapses and starts losing a lot of blood. Julia crawls through the apartment hoping to reach a small coffee table where she knows Irina has hidden a gun. But her crawling slows, and eventually, she stops. The audience then sees Julia’s body on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood.
How does Watcher end?
After seeing the suitcases on their bed, Francis calls Julia, worried that she’s leaving him. He then hears her phone ringing through the wall from Irina’s apartment. Francis walks into the hallway and sees the killer emerge from her apartment.
Francis shouts at him and begins to chase him, but before he can even get close, a bullet shoots through Irina’s doorway, hitting the killer in the chest.
The murderer falls into the wall and begins to slide down. Francis stands there in shock looking at him, and then Julia walks out of Irina’s apartment, revealing she faked her death to give her time to find Irina’s gun. The movie ends with Julia giving Francis a cold stare.
What does the ending of Watcher mean?
Unlike most horror movies, Julia and Francis don’t celebrate or feel relieved after surviving the serial killer. Instead, the film ends with her giving him an incredibly icy stare while he stands in complete shock.
It appears that Julia has absolutely no intention of staying in a relationship with Francis and feels angry and betrayed that he never believed her. Beyond being a classic serial killer flick, the movie deals with sexism and the familiar pattern of women not being believed.
The final moments show that Julia has been the smart, strong one all along.
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