What the Hell Is Going On In the Ending of "Wounds"?

Let’s untangle the freaky-deaky finale to Armie Hammer’s gross new horror film.

Welcome! If you're reading this article, we can assume you just watched Wounds on Netflix (or Hulu, if you're from the United States) and desperately need to understand what in the fresh hell you just witnessed.

We know you have many options when it comes to explainer articles on the internet, and we thank you for choosing Student Edge.

If you haven't experienced Wounds yet, and you just clicked the link because you're a curious cat with a penchant for self-punishment, maybe you should take 90 minutes and submit to its spooky shenanigans first, and discover why the truly bizarre climax is sending everyone into confused convulsions.

After watching #Wounds on Netflix pic.twitter.com/0adWwUjwSV

— Alice May Dear (@According2Al) October 19, 2019

As for everyone else, let’s dig into the strange ending of Wounds and figure out, together, wha' happened.

Spoiler alert for Wounds.

The film stars Armie Hammer as Will, a New Orleans-based bartender and college dropout with a chip on his shoulder (though, this metaphorical chip is preferable to the physical decay that comes later on). After witnessing a violent brawl at the bar one night, he picks up a phone left behind by some college kids, which begins receiving unsettling messages. He quickly figures out the code to the phone, and sees a series of photos involving dismembered, rotting heads. Then, after making a call on the device, he hears a disturbing tone and is informed he’s been "chosen". Soon, he's daydreaming about decapitations as well.

His girlfriend, Carrie (Dakota Johnson), sees the pictures too, and later falls into a fugue state, staring intently into her computer screen at what appears to be a dark tunnel. Will investigates Carrie’s search history, where he learns she's been reading about an ancient "Gnostic ritual of human sacrifice" described in a series of books called The Translation of Wounds (pictured in the phone’s photos as well).

Finally, after Will sweats through all his T-shirts and is driven mad from the torment of the apparent curse, he visits Eric (Brad William Henke), the barfly who was injured at the start of the film, and whose gashed-open cheek refuses to heal. Will then leans over Eric’s face and opens his mouth, while cockroaches swarm the apartment (and the camera). Just before we lose sight of what’s going on, a small monster exits Eric’s face and enters Will’s mouth. Fin.

Okay then. What’s it all mean?

The key to understanding and appreciating Wounds is to acknowledge that Will is an A-hole.

Throughout the movie, it’s suggested he cheated on Carrie in the past, and we also see him make a pushy move on bar regular Alicia (Zazie Beetz). He’s also suspicious of Carrie, always drinking, and often cruel. She refers to him as "a mock person". Though Hammer is charming, and Will seems to be genuinely tormented, there’s an emptiness at his center that can’t be blamed on recent events. And therefore, at the end of the flick, when he summons the monster to "make him whole", we’re led to believe Will has finally acknowledged what he’s long denied. The problem is that he doesn’t use this opportunity to get clean and grow; he lets a demonic monster-baby from another dimension fill his void instead.

Director Babak Anvari (who also helmed the excellent Under the Shadow and has adapted Nathan Ballingrud’s source novel The Visible Filth for the big screen) explained the intention of the sequence to Refinery29, saying "Will doesn’t really find any redemption in the end."

"He has a healthy dose of toxic masculinity," Anvari adds.

"Will is hiding something really shallow and hollow. Once he comes across this cellphone, this charm drops. As his life turns upside down, that mask starts to slide off and he exposes his true self."

Anvari said he wanted to explore how someone "gets to this point" where he "decides to dive into something he doesn’t really understand, this force he doesn’t get", comparing it to "alcohol or drugs or joining a cult or hate group". (On that last point, note the Confederate flag in Eric’s bedroom.)

Of course, that’s the deep and meaningful explanation. But what actually happens to Will?

This is a little harder to explain, but here goes.

A gift wrapped in flesh.

Will is told that Eric—or someone from Eric’s number—called to give him a gift. When he arrives at Eric's apartment, he's pointed towards the original cellphone—which Will had lost previously—and then a message pops up letting him know the gift is "wrapped in flesh". This suggests the true gift is the monster inside Eric.

However, the monster might not have literally been inside Eric. According to the movie's explanation of Gnosticism, bodily wounds can be used as portals to "transcend physical boundaries and connect with higher beings for power and enlightenment". Eric’s newly-opened cheek is that kind of a portal.

As for the monster, there’s a possibility it’s an Aeon, which is what Gnosticism calls entities that emerge from a split being, and can only be created by a flaw or sin in another Aeon.

Therefore, Will is the empty vessel for this entity. In fact, he was probably vulnerable to possession precisely because he was a "mock person" to begin with; empty and open to influence.

Of course, if you ask Gnostics, they’ll tell you Aeons aren’t all that bad. (They’re compared to angels.) But the way Anvari shoots the conclusion suggests an Aeon with malevolent intentions has overcome Will. (Usually, thousands of swarming cockroaches are the calling card of the bad guys.) Or, it could be that Will and the college kids summoned something else from another dimension; something truly bad. Unfortunately, that's where the picture ends, so we'll never know.

If Wounds continued past its closing scene, you might have seen a possessed Will doing some otherworldly evil. But hey, for him, that’s better than having an open and honest conversation about toxic masculinity with his GF!

Wounds is now available to stream on Netflix in Australia, and on Hulu in the US.

Header Image: Netflix