Explaining That Huge Twist at the End of 'The Nun'

Confused by the ending of The Nun? Too scared to watch a movie that’s 90 percent just a terrifying nun-monster jumping out from behind corners in a dimly lit castle? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with out spoiler-filled explainer of The Nun’s ending.

Spoilers for The Nun ahead, duh.

After showing us a bit of old footage from The Conjuring 2, The Nun begins with a pair of nuns walking through an old castle-turned-abbey in the backwoods of Romania. The older nun clutches an ancient key, using it to open a door that reads “God Ends Here.”

The first nun heads into the dark hallway and reemerges soon afterward, panicked and bloodied but still breathing. She tells the younger nun to run and a second later some demonic force quickly pulls the woman back into the darkness.

The younger nun runs through a hallway, pursued by some unholy force. Eventually, she ties a noose around her neck and jumps out the window, committing suicide and setting the rest of the movie’s plot in motion.

Soon afterward, a priest who doubles as an investigator into unnatural events for the Vatican and a young nun-in-training arrive at the abbey to check things out. They interact with various nuns, some of whom refuse to talk and others who are quick to divulge the secrets of the abbey — but things aren’t quite what they seem.

During one scene near the end of the film, the visiting nun joins a group of her sisters in the chapel to pray in an attempt to keep the demon at bay. But when the priest shows up, it turns out she’s actually all alone. In fact, they’ve been alone the entire time.

The abbey is empty aside from these investigators and the demon that haunts it. Those two nuns from the beginning where the last two to survive, and they sacrificed themselves to keep the demon from escaping.

That means everything we’ve seen up to that point is a lie, conjured by the demon to trick the main characters. It also means that these investigators gave the demon exactly what it wanted, a fresh body it can use as a host to escape the abbey once and for all. And, as the credits role, it turns out that’s exactly what’s happened.

The Nun is in theaters now.