The Wretched Ending Explained (Spoilers)

A defiant teenage boy, struggling with his parents' imminent divorce, faces off with a thousand year-old witch, who is living beneath the skin of and posing as the woman next door.

The Wretched: Spoilers Below

The first clip of The Wretched is of a scene thirty-five years ago, of a babysitter entering a house and finding it empty. She goes downstairs and sees a creature sitting in a chair. The creature turns around, and the babysitter is horrified. The babysitter is confronted by a man at the top of the stairs, who shuts the door in her face—the girl screams. Next, we see a door with a goat symbol on it. The next scene shows a young boy on a bus, just coming from a nightmare in which he was drowned. The on-screen caption reads "five days ago" but leaves the viewer wondering what that means-- what happened five days ago?

An older woman tells him that he's quite a talented artist. The boy, Ben, looks down at his cast and can't understand why the older woman was so impressed with just a scribble of black marker. He heads downstairs to meet his father, Liam. A folded photograph on the refrigerator containing pictures of both Liam and Ben reveals that the couple is divorcing. We understand that the mother is not in the image. Ben neglected to tell his father the truth about how he broke his arm while playing Connect 4. As a result, his father wasn't interested in the game.

The next day, Ben's father gives him a job at the marina teaching kids how to sail. Ben meets his colleague Mallory, who makes fun of him for being given the job through nepotism. Ben barely pays attention to her as he gawps at a girl living on a yacht with her wealthy, grating friends.

He agrees to teach Dillon, the neighbor's son. Dillon's mother, Abbie, takes him for a walk in the woods one day and goes away to pee. Dillon meanders around and hears his mother holler at him. He spots a vast tree and an opening near the roots where the voice emerges from. The voice becomes hostile when Dillon takes too much time to go to the tree. Just then, Dillon's mother leaps at him from behind and startles him.

Abbie and Ty have a child too, and when the kids are asleep, they spend time together with the curtains open. Ben uses his binoculars to spy on them. He's still upset at his dad for publicly kissing Sara, his girlfriend. Finally, Ben realizes that he must behave more maturely and asks his father to set up a dinner with Sara so he can meet her.

When Mallory tells him to get gluten-free dinner rolls, he invites him to a party where he meets the girl and her disagreeable friends again. They play "never have I ever," and Ben has to drink because he's the only one who broke his arm. He gets drunk and shares a story with Mallory where he reveals he broke his arm when breaking into the neighbor's home to steal drugs. Then, when climbing back into the house, he hurt his arm. Mallory and Ben share a moment of connection when she reveals her love of candy and Hannah Montana. However, the moment is ruined when Ben vomits on her.

After getting cleaned up, he meanders around and is beckoned into the pool by the girl who disrobes him and tells him to shut his eyes. It's an evident prank, and Ben is made to come out of the pool nude as her friends taunt him. Mallory is angry when she sees Ben and leaves.

When Ben gets home, his father is angry with him and tells him to miss dinner. Ben doesn't care that Mallory had a bad day too. Instead, he yells that Sara is a stupid girl and finds her still in the house. Naturally, Sara is not happy to be insulted. There is a table shot with four place settings, and you wonder if a guest is missing. Did Sara bring someone with her? Spoiler alert: there is another guest, but more on that later.

Meanwhile, when Abbie returned from the woods, she had hit a deer and brought it home to show off her hunting and butchering skills. Unfortunately, all she manages to do is spill all the animal's organs on her driveway. She then departs, leaving the buck carcass with its blood and organs intact. However, during the night, something grabs hold of the buck and tears it open from the inside. A monstrous creature has just emerged from the dead animal.

Abbie wakes up to find her baby missing and a pool of blood in the nursery. She follows the crunching noise to see her baby being eaten by a tree. The next day, when Ben returns home, he finds Dillon in his house. Dillon says that his mother has been behaving oddly. Abbie turns up at the house and demands to see her son.

Ben lies about Dillon being there, and Abbie calls him a foolish boy. Ty arrives, and Dillon goes running to his father. Abbie glared at Ben before leaving. She starts wearing flowing, low-cut tops instead of shorts and regular tops.

Later, Ben sees Abbie walking toward the woods with a child. He begins to chase her, but his father stops him, scolding him for getting into a fight. Ben says the other boys started it after he threw trash into their boats, but Liam wants his son to be well-behaved.

The next day, at sailing lessons, Dillon is a no-show. Ben goes to the neighbors', and Ty seems confused about who is inquiring. He doesn't remember his child. Ben is puzzled when he sees Abbie whispering in Ty's ear, prompting it to bleed. Ben chooses to explore this online and finds a legend of a sorceress who uses people's skin-like garments and feeds on kids. The witch has possessed Abbie, and he is investigating. He sees pictures of the family with their eyes scratched out. He also finds a picture of Mallory and her sister and realizes they might be the next victim.

Ben telephones Mallory, but she has no recollection of having a sister. Her sibling is abducted and pulled into the tree. Ben is considering calling the police, but they are already at his home to talk to him about breaking into his neighbor's cellar. In the kitchen with Sara, he notices the flowers wilting and realizes the witch has taken over his father's girlfriend. Ben uses a knife to defend himself and cuts her arm.

Sara transforms back to normal right as Liam enters. The cops arrest Ben and put him in the squad car. He continually tells his dad to search the cellar of the neighbor's house for answers, but his father refuses to do so in front of the police. Sara, meanwhile, mutters in the cop's ear and hurts him. The cop is fixated and drives Ben to the beach to kill him. This was what happened five days after Ben got out of the bus. The cop pulls out his gun but hesitates to shoot. He knows that shooting a teenager is wrong and ends up shooting himself instead.

Meanwhile, Liam decides to break into Abbie's house. He finds her, and her husband died and is attacked by Sara when Ben appears just in time with a gun. He shouts to Sara, and the witch stops. Ben takes Liam with him just as their house is burning. The family pictures begin to burn, and Ben remembers he had a little brother Nathan.

He remembers it was his little brother who was drawing on his cast that the older woman had commented on. He recalls playing connect 4 with him and that he was in the family picture. He was the fourth person who was supposed to be having dinner with Sara.

Ben enters the woods and gets a phone call from Mallory, who demands to know her sister's location. Ben finds a tree in the woods and goes inside it. He discovers a witch eating a child.

The more kids the witch has, the more powerful she becomes. Finally, Ben manages to save Nathan and Mallory's sister and defeat the witch. The witch seems to be powered by kids but keeps Ben and Mallory's kid alive for some reason. The witch chases Ben, but Liam arrives in time to stop her.

Ben is pleased to save his brother and that his dreadful time in this town is finally over. Liam has a broken leg, and his ex-wife is satisfied to drop him off at his brother's. Liam meets up with Mallory, who gives him a flower, saying it's a gift from her younger sister as a token of appreciation for saving her life. Liam kisses Mallory and legs it before she can ask for commitment. In the jalopy, he gets a whiff of the bouquet and realizes they're made of plastic. He ponders if a witch was behind giving him bogus blossoms.

Mallory is taking the kids on a boat ride by herself. She looks very odd like she's staring into space. It's obvious she's a witch and a pretty powerful one, too, given that her mere presence makes flowers wilt and die. But instead of using her powers for evil, she's decided to spread some happiness by giving everyone fake flowers.

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