Explaining the ending of “Never Let Go”: What actually happens in Halle Berry’s new horror film?

This article is part of IGN's Fantastic Fest coverage and contains extensive spoilers for the opening film, “Never Let Go,” starring Halle Berry and directed by Alexandre Aja.

Ask yourself whether Never let go has a post-credits scene? We'll tell you right here: There are no mid- or post-credits scenes. Again, there are spoilers…

A common misconception about ending explanations—that term should never be pluralized—is that they're definitive, when in reality they're just another critic offering you a different opinion in a format that, not coincidentally, is a review. I say this because many films don't have a clear and unambiguous ending that means the same thing to everyone who sees it. Alexandre Aja's latest film, All We Had to Give, falls so much into this category that Halle Berry (the film's star) introduced it at Fantastic Fest with the remark, “Decide for yourself what it means.” And anecdotally speaking, everyone I spoke to after the screening had a completely different opinion about what the film's ending actually means.

Let us approach this matter with enormous caution!

Never let go: What is evil?

A big part of Never Let Go's success is that you think Mama (Berry) is completely insane until you realize she isn't. But she is. Or maybe she isn't? Let me explain.

Mama lives alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with her two sons, Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV). The family must stay in their house at all times unless they hold on to a rope that is firmly attached to the cabin's foundation. In fact, when evil began to take over the world, her father built the house for her mother and gave her the ropes so she could roam the forest. We won't talk about the logistical problems – they come up in the film – but what you need to know is that evil always has some kind of serpentine quality, no matter what form it takes, and that none of Mama's sons can see these creatures. Only Mama says she can.

The biblical implications here are clear from the start, as is the warning of what can happen if you hold on too tightly to your beliefs without asking healthy questions. We know that Mom killed her husband, her mother. And her father when evil touched her; we know that Mom had a dark past and was “saved,” which fits the cliche of “born-again” Christians becoming unwavering believers; and we know that Nolan is starting to have questions about the rest of the world.

These questions, and Mama's decision to kill the family dog ​​so they don't starve (he's actually fine, don't worry), lead to Nolan chopping through Mama's rope and exposing her to evil. (Note: Nolan doesn't believe in evil at this point and is trying to show Mama that they can venture further out to find food if she would just believe him.) Rather than be touched by evil and thus, she believes, forced to murder her sons with her own hands, she decides to slit her own throat instead.

Explanation of the end of “Never Let Go”

After Mama's death – which occurs about halfway through the film, forcing young Jenkins and Daggs IV to carry the film alone and achieve remarkable success – things go downhill. And that's saying something, because this family is literally starving. There is a glimmer of hope, as Nolan runs as far and screams as loud as he can while remaining tied up in a last-ditch effort to save his brother, who is starving faster than he is.

The boys get their first real glimpse of the outside world when a hiker follows Nolan to his house after he calls out to him. But while Nolan sees the hiker as their savior, Samuel immediately believes he has started seeing demons, like his mother. The two argue, Samuel shoots the man in the stomach, and Nolan ends up stealing his backpack to get the food he knows the man has.

It is at this moment that Never Let Go changes gear. Nolan eats the food to his heart's content, savoring it so he can share it with his brother. Samuel initially refuses stubbornly, but later greedily devours the food while Nolan sleeps. It is at this moment that you wonder if the can of ravioli and the other foodstuffs are the proverbial forbidden apple, and if Nolan and Sam – who are strongly reminiscent of Cain and Abel from the start – have just given in to the temptation of evil.

But they didn't. Life-saving food is life-saving food, and the hiker was murdered for nothing.

Later, the wanderer's daughter shows up and signals the beginning of the end. Samuel, now apparently able to think clearly because he has food in his belly, chases the wanderer's daughter, apologizing for killing her father. She runs past the end of the rope, Samuel believes she is real and breaks free, but then she creepily crawls up a tree and scares him from behind, spitting a centipede at him that goes down his throat. The evil was real.

But it wasn't. But it was. (I swear I'm right.)

Now touched by evil, Samuel returns to their house and sets it on fire. He locks Nolan in his mother's room. He later takes a selfie with his mother's old Polaroid camera with the burning cabin in the background while his brother – he believes – burns to death. However, Nolan hides in the cabin's crawl space after confronting the evil disguised as his mother. Rather than choosing hate or fear, Nolan hugs Mama-Evil, who then transforms into regular evil (a kind of contortionist) and hugs him in return. Both boys survive the fire and are flown out of the woods, while the family dog ​​chases after the helicopter unharmed.

So! What does all this mean? Was Mom crazy? Was she not crazy? Is evil real or just pretend? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

First, in the post-screening Q&A, Berry noted that it's up to you to decide whether “the evil comes from her because she's schizophrenic” or whether she's just the way she is because “motherhood drives you crazy.” Given that her mother saw the same things she did before her, and schizophrenia runs in families, it's pretty likely that Mom (and Grandma) needed psychiatric help that they didn't get. As for the evil and the boys who end up seeing it, it comes down to a few things – all of which were crucial to my enjoyment of the film.

The 25 best horror films