GHOSTS OF WAR (2020) Ending Explained

howdy folks welcome to fountain flicks on this inning explained we're looking at the new netflix original ghost of war following a group of american world war ii soldiers assigned to defend a mysterious mansion that quickly descends into madness when they encounter a supernatural enemy more terrifying than anything seen on the battlefield ghost of war is a pleasing if not exactly groundbreaking mashup of world war ii warfare and a fairly standard haunted house setup all the pieces are there for our soldiers to discover and inevitably uncover the truth of the house as well as the backstory of the spirits plaguing them but then it totally shifts into something else entirely different and quite unexpected i had a ton of y'all asking for this one and when i checked it out i totally get why because it feels almost like a non-ending in a way especially after the bonkers late run time twist you know there is a possibility with movies to have the ending potentially ruin everything and i would argue that this one gets pretty close because the shift is so jarring that it to me didn't quite fit with the whole setup prior ultimately leaving the audience going huh i'm not quite sure what that was all about though there are a few clues peppered throughout to inform us there's something more going on beneath the surface so let's check out ghost of war breaking down the story and what's really going on the important statement it makes on wartime killing as well as explaining the surprising twist and ending that even if certainly abrupt we come to understand actually correlates into the film's overall themes after a lengthy quote about the toll that war takes on soldiers minds and spirits we open in nazi occupied france in 1944 a squad of soldiers sleeps overhearing the chaotic soundscape of war chris is awoken by a branch snapping seeing someone watching from the trees he slowly reaches for his gun as they light a cigar staring ominously from the shadows he gasps what do you want he squeezes his eyes closed and when opening them the person is gone in the morning the troops mill around one kirk complaining of needing more socks scratching at his foot with a fork which sounds like it wouldn't be the most pleasant experience they pack up and get a move on chris hearing a jeep approaching indeed one is and it drives right over a land mine exploding well that was easy enough they searched the bodies for codes and goodies tappered even removing one soldier's gold tooth one guy is still alive which they take care of with a crowbar to the face and there's another survivor the major who is challenged by the flagrantly masculine butchie to a brawl and hey is that billy zane what the heck is he doing here the major gets some pretty good blows in but they don't have time for foolishness and chris blows the dude's brains out realizing that they made a wrong turn they stop hearing footsteps training their weapons on the tree line and out comes a crowd of refugee jewish people tapper kindly runs out and offers the woman the jacket he procured as well as his collection of gold and they're on their way arriving in town the place is all rubble and scattered fires and we learn their assignment is to protect a mansion that they push the nazis out of and they are to hold down the fort until their relief comes everyone excited for clean sheets and toilet paper hell yeah they arrive at the absolutely massive mansion the amusing no wonder the nazis took it and despite the sweet digs curiously find a soldier sleeping outside in a jeep everyone wondering why that is tapper asks another why they're not sleeping in the beds but they dodged the question saying something about bed bugs the other soldiers are just ready to leave as they did arrive a day late and hustle out in a hurry they do have tons of food here leading them again to questioning what's wrong with this place they make themselves at home venturing around the mini rooms and everything seems pretty normal sands one strange black spot on the floor in the library chris comes in and sees it putting a chair on it that seems to go there based on the grooves he's then distracted by some distant muttering and metal clanging coming from inside the walls butchie on the other hand keeps trying to light a sig but some whooshing air keeps blowing the flame out he too hears weird noises and water bubbling from behind a door followed by painful screaming he tries to handle but it's locked yet strangely when walking away it opens on its own catching someone's shadow in the room it's already looking like we got some spooky spirits on our hands but again a few scattered references clue us into something else entirely at play eugene is reading a book about a machine that is supposed to be a mental portal between dimensions but also ends up being a portal between times interesting wonder why they would randomly include that in the story hearing thuds from upstairs they split to search different areas the noise is getting louder from the kitchen they come to a closed door that suddenly swings open and curtains fly back revealing what looks like a hanging person's silhouette for a moment the sounds continue into the night them already thinking we might need to sleep outside while chris thinks that he's picked up a pattern to the noises believing them to actually be morse code eugene transcribes the thumps and spells out i have no legs something suddenly drops into the fireplace but it's just a squirrel tapper throwing it back into the fire and always quality squirrel meat bud what are you doing kirk takes a creepy doll room most likely belonging to the daughter that once lived here and a music box springs to life creeping him out while eugene busies himself trying to open a chest noticing a family portrait nearby he's found a journal belonging to the family patriarch and starts reading from it the light blows out and as he struggles to light his zippo we spot someone behind him and looking back at the picture the family is now missing just empty chairs left behind tapard in the attic has his own confounding experience searching the grounds with a scope a person emerges from a closet behind him and when passing by the grounds again sees a hanging woman but when he goes outside to look there's nothing there already a bit ill at ease chris asks the others if they want to discuss last night and gets only silence in response well i guess not well it seems eugene is more scared of tapper's violent nature recalling how he slaughtered a bunch of nazi kids and was found in a daze with cat's cradle strings on his hand dreamily saying your move chris concluding hey at least he's on our side as tapper comes out seemingly hearing the whole thing he informs them he thinks he's figured out why the other squad was in such a hurry learning over the radio a group of german soldiers are on their way to the area suggesting they hide out in the nearby woods until they pass but chris is adamant that they can't abandon their post even if it is 5 versus 50 men tapper chuffs he'll go to the attic to spot them asking eugene to come along joking they can play a round of cats cradle murdering kids nothing funnier they move the area rug and discover a ritualistic circle and symbols underneath and knowing hitler was big into the occult eugene thinks that they must have committed some ritualistic killings here the two move the armoire across the floor with some serious effort and right when it reaches the symbol the door slams on eugene's fingers mangling them pretty good he blames tapper but he knows that it wasn't him and in the mirror sees the hanging woman that vanishes they check the radio only hearing garbled speaking at first that then turns clear speaking of burning for eternity they're coming for you we steal joy and rip skulls apart raping our memories sounds like a blast now everyone is starting to believe the place is haunted and eugene takes down more morse code from the thumps spelling if you leave and something takes over his hand frantically completing you die well so much for leaving i guess there's no time to consider further spying the first truck on its way to the house they padlocked the door to hopefully make it appear abandoned they all pile up to the place and try the handles and they start to gather back in their truck just about to move on until some clangs ring out from the attic oh thanks a lot ghost you blew our cover all hell then breaks loose and they smash the windows tossing in a grenade and butchie heroically jumps on it to save the others but gets blown up pretty good in the process chris starts picking off guys as they approach until they overwhelm him and make it inside the house sending him fleeing into the basement he surprises one on the stairs knocking him down and stabbing the other the others are scattered throughout the house kirk hiding behind a door while other soldiers enter and chris plays dead to get to jump on some more getting one in the throat and snatching his gun to take out the other it's kind of a badass actually kirk's still hiding hears a child giggling and water splashing and enters the bathroom seeing a soldier being drowned by an invisible force eugene takes refuge behind a desk a guy coming up right on the other side and they start whistling ode to joy eugene very quietly reloads and jumps out to a ghostly woman that shrieks then turning into a man engulfed in flames he considers firing but convinces himself that it can't be real in the attic tapered finds the nazi following him hanging and handcuffed oh well actually thanks for the assist there ghosties and they somehow do manage to take out the entire group they set too clearing out the bodies tapper looking shell-shocked and smoking a cigarette now they can breathe again and chris debates what does a haunting even mean is it tied to the location or the people eugene pipes up that evil is simply a man-made concept in the first place while this slightly unhinged taper believes evil is what makes the violence so much fun nazis are bad so it's okay to kill him it's not evil eugene brings up how everything they have experienced actually happened to the hellwig family that lived here from drowning the boy in the bathtub hanging the daughter from the rafters and forcing the mom to watch her husband get set on fire the bodies were unceremoniously tossed in a heap with no funeral or headstones and chris knows his horror flicks thinking that without a proper burial this could explain why their spirits are at unrest noticing the family gathered outside the window also worth noting is tapper's starting to carve a word into the wall only having v-e-t written so far eugene checks in on a surprisingly still alive butchie but he sure ain't looking so hot tapered enters bringing up how his mother loved horror movies the scarier the better he said but what he's seen and done in the war is on a whole other level caprent brings him closer bringing up the infamous child murder incident and he admits that he didn't feel in control as though he was out of his own body like a fever dream he snickers it was only by eugene bringing it up yesterday that tapper even remembered what happened chris alone in the bathroom finds the bathtub undrained and peers into the murky water seeing a boy manifest behind him he pulls himself together and calls out that he's here to help him and he's back the room instantly turning cold his breath hanging in the air and gets thrown into the tub it flashes to dudes over him and gas masks going at him with a power drill and then flashes to another group which appear much more modern in appearance who are those guys fortunately this is just a dream woken up by eugene and they meet to determine what to do next as no one is willing to stay another night in the house despite the threat of being court-martialed for leaving their post they search the basement for more clues and the flashlight cuts out eugene going to retrieve his lighter chris decides to sneak a peek at the journal and oddly after the first page it appears to be completely blank eugene returns looking tense asking if he's studying german elsewhere a shadowy hand reaches over butchie who comes to yelling over and over this isn't real it was us chris grabs him panting and butchy mutters to remember and falls back shaking and dies they're more than ready to get the hell out of here despite chris maintaining his thinking the family just needs a proper burial to stop this curse regardless he agrees to the other's wishes and they set off into the countryside they approach a tree line and more refugees emerge but it's in fact the same group that they previously encountered the woman wearing the jacket that tapered gave her before they're baffled eugene asking if they should even keep going chris selecting to flip a coin this strange loop they've encountered causes eugene to remember the classic short story occurrence at owl creek bridge which in its entirety occurs in the second before the protagonist's death considering that that might be the case here if we're dead heaven sucks tapper turtles eugene suggests that they are perhaps instead in hell as we know hell is repetition people trapped in a loop for eternity more evidence proves something is definitely off when they pass the same abandoned medical truck that they already did and decided they might as well just head back to the house and the oddness is starting to stack up in even more ways kirk realizing that he hasn't taken a [ __ ] in weeks definitely not normal they agree and they bunker down to hopefully get some rest in the night someone surprises tapper finding himself in the attic hanging in handcuffs surrounded by eerie whispering the chair falls and he gasps for air the rope breaks and he teleports to back in the field with the others everyone else still asleep he sees the word vetrulek written in the dirt and the troops wind up back at the same medic truck yep major loopage going on here teppert and kirk even repeating verbatim what they said previously and no matter how they try they inevitably wind up back at the house thinking it won't let them leave well it's still the whole burial thing to try but according to eugene the last page of the journal was missing so they pour out flour all over the floor to attempt to track and communicate with the spirits in hopes of finding their bodies tapered mumbles vitrulek to himself eugene wondering where he heard it he knows it's an old muslim belief that was mentioned in the journal if you let evil happen it could come back to haunt you tenfold but eugene clarifies it's more like a curse than simply good men being idle to evil they sit and wait and it doesn't take long until they hear footsteps upstairs that start approaching them outlines appearing in the powder chris closes his eyes and the lady appears right in front of him and grabs him dragging him outside chris yells for them to shoot but they don't see anything as he is taken to another house on the grounds everyone chasing after they kick open the door which has a weird effect on them their vision's getting blurry hearing shouting and flashing to what looks like the middle east and hearing a woman screaming that flashes away they discover chris on a staircase they're here he says pointing to a pile of bodies at the bottom of the stairs which they proceed to bury they also find the elusive last page of the journal which confuses eugene as it seems the family is afghan rather than french as they thought and apparently they held a lot of jews in the walls to protect them and spent a fortune providing them safe passage to america tapered has another encounter in the bathroom the water's seen overfilling from the tub he shuts it off and is drawn away by more creaking a woman is out the window and he checks through his scope seeing nothing when putting it down she's closer and one more time she's gone or rather right behind him giving him a nice surprise hello eugene continues that it seems his wife did a vitriolic curse haunting the nazis from beyond the grave kirk just wants to finish the job them joining in on the lord's prayer they finally get that chest popped open discovering many boxes of cigars inside there was mention of this too in the journal but when checking the page eugene says the words have somehow changed now he understands that making them prisoner and killing them in fact only gave them more power the power to bring them back from the dead wow powerful stuff that veteran tampered sits in the ritual circle as letters come to life glowing around him the family reemerges and attacks the group they try to defend themselves but nothing even phases them one goes for broke stuffing a grenade in the boy's shirt and gets tossed away the grenade goes off blowing a hole in him but has absolutely no effect and oddly the family all start glitching in a sense like in a computer or something hmm butchie with no legs appears yelling it isn't real and takes him to the mirror shouting to remember again he flashes back through many previous occurrences and see a modern looking facility including billy zane oh there he is chris comes too and looks around seeing the rest of his crew are all tied up to machines and with various quite severe injuries like the half of one dude's face is completely blown off yeah understandably confused chris grabs a scalpel threatening the others and pulls back the covers seeing he's missing the bottom halves of his legs zayn assures him he'll remember asking to recall his last day in afghanistan and then he does the whole gang is in modern garb and they meet with another jack bauer looking [ __ ] in a leather jacket apparently the highest ranking in the group kind of correlation to what they were doing in the simulation their mission here is to extract a doctor and his family and transport them to a safe house coming to the same building that we saw at this smaller house where they found the bodies zane clarifies the situation him and his gang had such severe injuries that they couldn't be treated at a normal facility saying that the mental aspect is a big part of healing when pressed by the awareness of their injuries the body can shut down and die immediately this simulation is designed for recovery from post-traumatic stress but where's butchie chris asks zayn's size it's not supposed to be like this as we continue through what really happened here almost completely opposite to the simulation tapper doesn't go and murder a bunch of kids when seeing two kids playing the cat's cradle he offers a stuffed squirrel to them instead they enter the house the family speaking arabic and the other dude paul tells him that there's been some cyber chatter about him and they have to leave in two minutes the timeline and danger is cranked up when paul gets another transmission that three isis trucks are on their way right now ordering the group to hide in the wall they try to refuse but he's unwavering demanding that they have no choice but to hide what about getting the family to safety and all that stuff too late for that now there's no chance for a safe extraction eugene notices a bomb down on the floor hearing vehicles approaching outside the family tries to play it cool offering the leader food and to get comfortable he swears that he hasn't said anything to anyone but he's confused as he's been given so many glowing reports of the medicine the doctor has suspicious of him receiving american medication in exchange for intel just as in the sim they grabbed the family bringing the boy to the sink and seeing a box of those cigars from the chest helps himself to one and puts a noose around the daughter's neck doc is strapped to a chair our crew waiting impatiently with guns trained even though they were told to stay back they have other plans eugene putting a knife to jack's throat you're done he grumbles they count down to help but their plan is foiled when two more heavily armed trucks show up and chris gives him the xnay symbol they are then forced to helplessly watch as the family is taken out again just as in the simulation everyone upset and unable to help as the dark is burned alive the deep done the isis gang takes their leave paul tells him to stay put as drones are going to get the isis boys but butchie tells him see it my court-martial and kicks his way out checking on the family about to cut the girl down paul stops him saying we were never here him telling him to [ __ ] right off they go outside seeing one of the kids has his head blown clean off with a string still in his hands just as tapered with struggled in the sim the wife comes outside with their secret bomb and sets it off and butchie jumps on it the blast sending our crew flinging into the air and now he remembers the painful truth and the whole point of this whole thing that they could have helped him if they acted sooner and this is the whole struggle the gang was trying to deal with in the computer simulation zane reveals that they have been in rehab for six weeks a few days ago butch awoke from the coma and when he saw his body he immediately shut down and died chris remembering more details like how butchie kept trying to tell them that it wasn't real or kirk having a phantom itch scratching at his foot when in reality he lost it and the morse code was actually coming from them the mind telling what you couldn't see if you leave you die that is true sure zane and the lady doctor had good intentions with his wacky form of therapy but chris brings up a major wrinkle to the computer thing asking did they know that their sim is haunted a ghost in the machine or a virus or what have you zain obviously had no idea about this it was just supposed to be about reliving their old mission what about vetrulek ladydoc mentions that they all said the word at some point and according to the internet is a muslim curse and back to the bombing the wife is seen cursing the group with the vetera leg the lights blink in the room seeing all their ghosts are still there in the monitor and he now realizes that they actually brought them into the sim as well as bringing them to life and giving them power well that really didn't go so well did it but it's not real zayn maintains but chris knows it feels real when you're in the sim while the other guy starts spasming and chris wants to go back to help them as he now knows what they need to do face their sins and atone before it's too late lady doc agrees cerebral linking him back into the machine but whoops forgets that it will suppress his memories and he may find his memory is essentially wiped flashing through several more memories as the countdown reaches zero back in the simulation chris wakes up at the very beginning of this whole thing asleep in the field and first seeing the cigar smoking figure in the tree he asked what do you want and things abruptly end i know this feels like a non-ending like i said at the beginning but the intention is clear just before going back under the lady doctor warns chris that he could lose his memory and based on his reaction to the man in the tree he says the exact same thing as at the beginning the takeaway is that he doesn't remember anything about the facility or this being a sim or any of that stuff and is essentially rebooting back to the beginning of this whole thing forced to live the whole experience all over again this ties back to many earlier conversations such as hell being repetition which we are seeing in action in this outcome as well as the occurrence at all creek bridge which all occurs in the flash before a man dies same thing with our crew in a more tech centric fashion hooked up to zayn's wacky simulation this entire reality is occurring while they lie at death's door that is their unfortunate fate the reason being based on another conversation the sin of inaction the boys were initially going to help and save the family but were persuaded not to out of the very real fear of losing their own lives this is considered evil in its own right and this is why the wife curses them they could have helped but didn't so now they have to suffer for the sins and what we see having to relive this scenario and having to come to terms what they did over and over certainly fits this bill so i get all that but i'm not quite sure that the soldiers deserve to be damned to this extent sure they could have acted to save the family but there's an extremely small chance any of them would have survived considering just how outnumbered they were sure we see they're pretty good when the germans raid the house but considering the odds it's obviously better to not act in my opinion what good would it do if they all died and then they wouldn't even have the chance to get rehabbed in the sim anyway and also what the heck happened to sexy jack bauer aka paul it seems weird to not have him involved in the grander scheme here since he forced them to stand down like he was guilty in his own way and if he was the one that put them in the simulation to try to do the best to help those that were seriously injured thanks to him that would have made sense to the story and how would the simulation be able to technically reset now the butchie is dead in the real world i guess he would just be gone on the reboot on the subject the sim itself seems incredibly bizarre and unexplained why do they even attempt this in the first place and what would have been the point if the family didn't show up at all the whole idea according to zane was to confront what they had done their post-traumatic trauma in a less dramatic way so how would this have even been accomplished without the ghost of the past being heavily involved it kind of just doesn't make any sense to be honest by the same token if literally like the whole bottom half of my head is gone i'm not even sure that i would want to survive at that point what kind of life is that no thanks billy zane and it calls into question once more what the freaking point was of the whole wacky simulation therapy thing is oh you were able to come to terms with [ __ ] congratulations you don't have a jaw anymore glad to have you back you know what i mean it's like the filmmakers had this idea of a world war ii ghost story with this big sci-fi twist but never quite found a way to seamlessly marry the ideas because the result is pretty sloppy on multiple fronts sorry i feel like i'm ranting even more than usual but i guess my point after all is that it is possible for an ending to undermine everything that came before it now there's nothing inherently wrong with a drastic shift in direction but it's also important to make that feel cohesive and congruent with the story up to that point and ghost of war doesn't quite make it work that brings us to the conclusion of this inning explained for ghost award don't forget before we go you can see me request for any movies or tv shows you'd like to see me explain by sending them my way on any of my social media accounts at foundflix what did you guys think of ghost of war in its ending would you ever trust billy zane after titanic come on let me know your thoughts down in the comments below make sure to like subscribe and follow thanks for watching found flicks see you next time

Channel: FoundFlix

Views: 1,380,641

Rating: 4.9562149 out of 5

Keywords: ghosts of war, ghosts of war ending explained, ending explained, ending, explained, twist, twist ending, explanation, trailer, clip, final scene, end scene, spoiler, review, new netflix horror, vetrulek, foundlflix ending explained, foundflix

Id: 1fE6K71UL_0

Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020