‘Die Alone’ Movie Ending Explained: Is Ethan Dead Or Alive?

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For the longest possible time, Die Alone keeps guarding its big twist. Quite naturally, Lowell Dean’s zombie horror film hinges on a narrative that is intentionally confusing. Just like its lead character often finds it difficult to understand what is really going on, the audience faces the same challenge. Everything does become quite clear in the end though, as the movie makes it a point to clarify all sorts of things. In this article, I am going to take a swing at simplifying the story by taking a chronological approach. And yes, we are obviously going to discuss Die Alone’s ending, in case you were wondering.

Spoilers Ahead


What Happens in the Movie?

Die Alone begins with this young man, Ethan, pointing a gun at his own head. He looks heartbroken and anxious, and soon we see him pulling the trigger. As always happens in a story like this, we travel back into the past. Ethan and his girlfriend Emma are traveling to their cabin in the middle of a chaotic situation. There’s a plant-based virus ravaging the world, turning everyone into zombies. Ethan and Emma are convinced that at their cabin, they will be able to stay away from all this till the dust settles. Unfortunately, Ethan is suffering from amnesia. After a car crash, he wakes up, but he’s unable to find Emma. There’s a plaster on his left hand with a heart symbol and Emma’s name in it. He is soon taken in by Mae, an older woman who lives at a farm in the middle of nowhere. He is skeptical about this stranger, but Mae provides him food and shelter. She also promises to help him look for Emma, but every time he brings it up, Mae somewhat avoids the topic. Not to mention, every time Ethan tries to leave, Mae somehow prevents him from doing so. He still does though, as he sneaks out one night, steals Mae’s truck, and reaches the cabin. He does not see Emma there. Instead, he finds this woman and her young son. The woman seems to know Emma’s name but hasn’t seen her. When a zombie suddenly attacks the cabin, Ethan defends the woman with all his might. Sadly, he soon has one of his amnesiac spells, and when he wakes up, he finds the woman and child are dead; their bodies have been mutilated. Clearly, the zombies had quite a feast here. Ethan is confused again, but Mae comes to the rescue. She introduces herself to Ethan again and takes him back home.

A man named Tom soon arrives at Mae’s doorstep, on the pretext of being a survivor looking to find shelter. But it turns out that Tom is not what he seemed like. Soon, a few other men get inside the house without any good intention. They are with Tom, of course, and this group of men ties up Mae with a chair. In the middle of all these, Ethan has another spell while all this is going on. But upon waking up, he sees Tom is demanding an answer from Mae. Apparently, she has killed his wife and several other people. Tom also suggests to Ethan that Mae has killed his girlfriend as well. Ethan does not know who is right and who is wrong, but after ransacking Mae’s room, he finds a pendant with a picture of him and Emma. Incidentally, Tom also discovers one of his wife’s belongings. Mae still continues to deny the allegation and ends up telling Ethan something really strange. She tells Ethan that he is actually dead. Then in the next moment, we find Ethan attacking Tom and basically gorging on him, just like the zombies.


What Really Happened To Ethan?

This is where everything is changed in Die Alone. We find out that in the past, Ethan was attacked by a zombie and succumbed. Instead of leaving him behind, Emma chooses to take care of him even after he turns. The zombies are indestructible in this world. The best you can do is shoot them in their heads, which knocks them out for a while, giving you the time to escape. But if they are fed human flesh on a regular basis, their human appearance remains the same. The only downside is the amnesia, which Ethan has.

Ethan and Emma ended up on the same farm in the past (where Mae lives). We see a family is living there—a man, his wife, and his daughter. They let Emma and Ethan enter after carefully vetting them. I wonder why the man would not want to check what’s beneath Ethan’s plaster, especially where he is being so thorough. Well, I guess the narrative demanded he have this lapse of judgment, and he pays the price for that, along with his family. Emma has to kill the man while Ethan gorges on the woman and the child. It is not at all a pretty thing to look at, and all kinds of morality have already gone for a toss for Emma and Ethan. But that is the kind of story being told here, and you have to admit that it is absolutely brutal and heartbreaking.


Does Ethan Live or Die?

I guess Mae and Emma being the same person was a given, and when it is finally revealed to Ethan, he is both shocked and shattered. That is natural given the fact that Ethan is, indeed, a monster who only got to live like this thanks to his girlfriend, who loves him unconditionally. She loved him so much that she didn’t mind doing all these terrible things to innocent people for all these many years (yes, quite a long time has passed given the character is played by two different actors). But Ethan cannot accept it. So he does what anyone would do in this situation. He takes the gun and shoots himself. Except he can’t die because he has already died a long time ago as a human. Ethan is doomed for eternity in this world. But Emma/Mae has reached the point where she can’t do it anymore. So she asks Ethan to kill her and do his thing. He is going to forget all about it anyway. It is an extremely tragic conclusion to the whole story, but if you think about it, at least Emma got to spend her life with the person she loved. And she can’t help Ethan forever under any circumstances. This is as far she could come in the journey. For him though, it’s even worse, but on the plus side, he is not going to have a consciousness anymore. Because his girlfriend wouldn’t be there to feed him fresh human meat. For Ethan’s sake, I hope someone finds a way to kill the zombies in this world.


Rohitavra Majumdar
Rohitavra Majumdar
Rohitavra likes to talk about movies, music, photography, food, and football. He has a government job to get by, but all those other things are what keep him going.


 

 

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