The Ending Of Chained Explained

Mostly overlooked when it was first released in 2012, "Chained" is a blend of psychological thriller that borders on horror starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Eamon Farren, and Jake Weber. Directed by Jennifer Lynch — daughter of "Twin Peaks" creator and auteur filmmaker David Lynch — the film is the sickening story of a serial rapist and murderer who grooms a young captive boy to become his successor. 

D'Onofrio plays Bob, a slow-witted but brutally vicious madman who has been kidnapping and slaughtering women. His newest target is wife and mother Sarah (Julia Ormond) and her young son Tim (played by Evan Bird in the first act). After Sarah is discarded, Bob decides to keep Tim as his personal servant, so he grows up in captivity, under the thumb of a dangerous killer. A decade later, when he's given the unexpected chance to finally escape his tormenter, Tim (Farren) discovers that putting an end to his nightmare isn't as easy as it seems.

With some complex story elements and a blood-curdling climax — not to mention a jaw-dropping plot twist — "Chained" may need a little explanation to be fully understood. Be warned: the film is not for the faint of heart. 

This article discusses violence, sexual assault, incest, and other topics that may be sensitive to some readers.

At first glance, "Chained" might appear to be part of the "torture porn" genre of films, but features less graphic violence than the likes of "Saw" or "Hostel" and other movies of that ilk. Instead, the focus of the movie is squarely on the disturbing predatory relationship between the killer Bob and his child assistant Rabbit, and the strange bond he feels toward the boy he views as his son. Throughout the film, we're also given brief glimpses into Bob's past that almost make him a sympathetic figure.

Following a scene where Bob witnesses a father verbally berating his teenage son, we see a flashback to Bob as a teen himself, who comes home from school with his younger brother. Teenage Bob is apparently working an after-school job, which enrages their father, who was recently laid off from work. In one of the film's most shockingly brutal scenes, Bob's father takes out his rage by beating his son and forcing Bob to have sex with his own mother. It's a traumatic moment that would shape the rest of Bob's life and turn him into a vengeful monster with a hatred for women.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

To the audience's surprise, Rabbit's escape from Bob's clutches isn't the end of the film, and there's a second, more sinister conclusion that still awaits. After his escape, Rabbit — who has now reclaimed his name as Tim — seeks out his father, Brad Fittler. The day that Tim had been abducted, Brad had insisted that his wife and son take a cab home rather than a bus because it would be safer, meaning their abduction was inadvertently his fault. That's not why Tim has come seeking him out, though. In the aftermath of Bob's murder, he learned that Brad's involvement in their kidnapping was more than just a tragic mistake.

Arriving at his father's new home — where he has remarried and has a new son — Tim shows his father a letter he found in Bob's belongings. It's then revealed that their initial encounter with Bob all those years ago was no coincidence, because Brad is the younger brother that Bob had endured his father's abuse to protect. Worse still, Tim has learned from Bob's letter that Brad had paid his brother $10,000 to kidnap and murder his wife Sarah, so he could be free to start a new life. 

In the wake of this revelation, Brad attacks his son, but his new wife intervenes, stunned by the betrayal and years of lies. Brad turns his rage on his new wife, but Tim is able to overpower him, and kills his father in a brutal beating.

From the age of nine until his adulthood, young Tim Fittler was subjected to the barbaric cruelty of his uncle Bob. Beaten, starved, and kept isolated from the world, he was kept chained up within the confines of a small house located in a remote area of Nebraska where there wasn't a soul around for miles. Forced to participate in the rape and murder of countless women, his identity was stripped away, until he became little more than a frightened animal who Bob called Rabbit.

The question the film asks, though, is whether Rabbit can ever escape not just his physical confinement in Bob's home but also the cycle of violence that often passes from one generation to the next. Though he does manage to turn the tables on his uncle, murdering him and burying him beneath the house, the film closes on a somewhat ambiguous note, without a clear answer as to whether Rabbit becomes an abuser himself. While he may have attempted to save Angie's life, and killed his abuser, there are sounds during closing credits that suggest that he may have taken Bob's place as a cab driver and abductor of women. Thankfully, director Jennifer Lynch addressed this ending more directly in interviews — but more on that later.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

As it turns out, when director Jennifer Lynch first came aboard the film, it was more focused on sex and violence. Originally filled with graphic, bloody torture scenes, Lynch decided to strip most of it out of the film. "I was really intrigued by the idea of a killer who drove a taxi cab and the kidnapping of the boy," Lynch told the This Is Horror Podcast. "But I didn't gravitate toward the way the man killed, there was no understanding of the killer within that."

That's not all Lynch altered, though. It sounds like in the original version of the movie, Bob was actually caught for his rape and murder spree. "There was an entire B-story where detectives were pursuing the killer of all these women," Lynch revealed. "To me it was a lot more frightening to think of Bob getting away with it." Ultimately, Lynch decided to cut the entire chase for the killer and the graphic torture: "I removed the detectives because I've seen that movie, I hadn't seen this one. I wanted to deal more with the actual people rather than cutting pieces of women off and letting them die slowly, that just seemed unnecessary to me."

That's not all, though. Another ending from Lynch's version of the story that didn't make it into the film would have revealed that the area surrounding Bob's home had become a thriving suburban neighborhood during the 10 years of Tim's captivity. "I just couldn't afford the CG," Lynch said of the unfilmed ending.

During the press tour for "Chained," Jennifer Lynch did a number of interviews where she talked about the making of the film. She hasn't been shy about what the story meant to her. But in a chart with Hey U Guys, Lynch elaborated on the ambiguous ending of the film and the questions of whether Angie is alive and whether Tim/Rabbit became a killer himself.

"I love a bit of uncertainty at the end of things," Lynch told the outlet. "It allows for dialogue and audience involvement after the movie." She has used such open-ended conclusions in other films, and decided to leave the door open for questions on "Chained," too. "I adore the different views on what might become of someone who has survived such things. What happens next. Will the love they knew once be the thing that echoes, or will the violence be too loud? ... If we can save children from abusive situations, we can begin to end the cycle of the abused becoming abusers. Until then, our silence and hands in our pockets, only keep the monsters coming."

But what about those ominous sounds heard over the credits, of Tim cutting out newspaper clippings, getting into the cab, and opening the garage door? Does this mean he's taken Bob's place as a killer? "The sounds of Rabbit in the house over the end credits were really important to me. He returns to the only home he has now. He does what he knows. But in my opinion Angie is fine. Next stop, IKEA."