The Ending Of Till Death Explained
"Till Death" is a perfectly paced horror-thriller about the worst marriage you've ever seen. Directed by S.K. Dale and written by Jason Carvey, the film recently came to Netflix where subscribers can't get enough of the flick.
The film follows Emma (Megan Fox), who's in an unhappy marriage with her attorney husband, Mark (Eoin Macken). The couple met a decade ago when Mark prosecuted the man who stalked and stabbed Emma. Mark has become a corrupt defense attorney, and Emma soon finds out he's facing arrest for evidence tampering. He emotionally abuses his wife, which drives her to have an affair with his employee, Tom (Ami Ameen).
On their anniversary, Mark gives Emma a steel necklace, takes her to their secluded lake house, and tells her he wants to give their relationship another shot. But then, the following day, she wakes up to find herself handcuffed to Mark, who shoots himself in the head. Emma has to figure out how to get herself unchained from her dead husband and escape the house. It turns out Mark did everything he could to make her escape as difficult as possible. The worst thing Mark did was send Bobby Ray (Callan Mulvey), the man who attacked her a decade ago and is now free, to get diamonds he'd stashed in a safe in the house.
Till Death's final shot is ambiguous
Bobby Ray and his brother Jimmy (Jack Roth) capture Emma and force her to tell them the code to the safe, which is the date Mark proposed to her. However, there are no diamonds inside the safe, just a bone saw. Bobby Ray realizes that the diamonds are inside the steel necklace, and Mark intended for him to saw Emma's head off to get to them.
Bobby Ray plans to kill Emma, but she fights back and somehow gets free and cuffs him to Mark's body. She escapes to the frozen lake, pursued by Bobby Ray, who is dragging Mark's corpse behind him. As they struggle, the ice gives way, and they fall into the freezing water. Mark's deadweight pulls down Bobby Ray, and he drags Emma down with him. She manages to pull out the knife she jabbed into his shoulder earlier and fatally stabs him in the eye — which is a highly symbolic move because she got free from him a decade ago by stabbing her keys into his other eye.
She almost drowns, but she manages to pull herself out of the water. As she lays on the ice, she rolls her wedding ring into the water, where it sinks to be with Mark. She hears sirens in the distance, responding to an interrupted 911 call she managed to make earlier. She's freezing and bleeding and breathing very heavily.
The last shot of the movie is from high above Emma, looking down at her. She smiles, happy to finally be free of Mark. Her breath seems to slow, but it's impossible to tell for sure because the camera is too far away.
Does Emma die at the end of Till Death?
It's an ambiguous movie ending, where viewers get to choose what they believe happened to Emma. Optimists will think she held on for long enough to be rescued, while pessimists will believe she succumbed to the cold and her injuries before the police arrived. Either way, the vow of "till death do us part" has been fulfilled.
In an interview with Australian news outlet 3AW, director S.K. Dale was asked what he thought happened to Emma in those final moments. He said he didn't feel the need to give the audience a definitive answer. "During production we'd always discuss what scenes might come after, but I think the story here was enough," he said.
It's a very good ending. It's satisfying in the way it ends the movie's plot – Emma is finally free of her awful husband. She survived to the end of the story. Knowing whether or not she survives past that point isn't necessary to feel satiated by the ending. It's an earned ambiguous resolution that gives viewers something to keep talking and thinking about after the credits roll.