Ghost Stories' Ending Explained

Summary The Ghost Stories ending unveils a shocking twist, revealing a deeper mystery behind the three tales in the movie.

Clues hinting at Goodman's guilt and the dark secret throughout the film, leading up to the jaw-dropping conclusion.

The real meaning of Ghost Stories ending addresses themes of guilt, toxic masculinity, and male struggles to articulate feelings.

The Ghost Stories ending reveals a shocking twist that changes the entire movie, but there are clues to the devastating reveal throughout the movie. Written and directed by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, as well as starring Nyman, the movie follows Phillip Goodman, the host of a TV show dedicated to debunking the supernatural. Goodman receives a letter from his hero, Charles Cameron, who asks him to investigate three cases of paranormal occurrences that he couldn't solve. What follows is a dark and harrowing journey leading to the Ghost Stories ending.

The 2018 anthology horror movie Ghost Stories is made up of three stories outside the framing device of Goodman's investigation. The cases are, respectively: Tony Matthews, a night watchman at an asylum who witnesses a ghost sighting; Simon Rifkind, a nervous and highly-strung young man, ran over a monstrous goat creature while illegally driving his dad's car; and Mike Priddle, a wealthy businessman, encountered a nasty poltergeist that heralded the death of his wife and the birth of a monstrous child called Barty. However, there is a deeper mystery behind the three tales and the Ghost Stories ending.

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What Happens In Ghost Stories Ending?

Goodman's Reality Comes Crumbling Down

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After hearing the three unsettling stories — and witnessing Mike Priddle's abrupt and shocking suicide — Goodman returns to Cameron, convinced that they're merely manifestations of the storytellers' troubled minds. At this point, Cameron rips off his face to reveal Mike Priddle's face underneath. Reality is further skewed as Goodman follows Priddle into a wooded area, and experiences a flashback to a terrible incident in his youth.

The young Goodman is accosted by two bullies who make him stand next to a tunnel while they throw stones at him, but are interrupted by the arrival of another classmate — Desi Callahan. One of the bullies tells Callahan that he can be in their gang if he goes into the tunnel, where ten numbers have been chalked onto the walls, and memorizes the tenth number. Of course, it was just a cruel prank, as there are only nine numbers in the tunnel.

Callahan goes into the tunnel, reading off the numbers, but gradually growing more panicked as the tunnel becomes narrower and narrower. Eventually, he succumbs to an asthma attack and the bullies run away, with Goodman following them shortly afterward. Priddle then returns and confronts Goodman about the fact that he didn't go into the tunnel to help Callahan, or run and get help, or even tell anyone what had happened to the boy.

Everything he experienced throughout the rest of the movie was simply a manifestation of his guilt, fleshed out with details from his immediate surroundings.

In the final scene of Ghost Stories, the rotted corpse of Callahan accosts Goodman and forces his finger into his mouth. It's then revealed that Callahan's finger is actually a breathing tube, and Goodman is in a coma following a suicide attempt, lying in a hospital with little to no hope of ever waking up again. Everything he experienced throughout the rest of the movie was simply a manifestation of his guilt, fleshed out with details from his immediate surroundings. Mike Priddle is actually a senior doctor, Simon Rifkind a junior doctor, and Tony Matthews a hospital janitor.

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Clues To Ghost Stories' Ending

Hints Of Goodman's Guilt Are Throughout The Movie

Like any movie with a good twist ending, Ghost Stories is worth watching at least twice, in order to pick up on all of the clues that were dropped along the way. Speaking to Directors Notes at the London Film Festival last year, Nyman explained that the key to creating tension in a film is "trying to communicate to the audience either verbally or visually that something is wrong."

While Goodman's journey does have the veneer of reality, it also features a gradual build-up of hints that something is not quite right. Within each of the stories Goodman is told, there are moments of surrealism that suggest a disconnect from reality. Tony Matthews alone sitting in a pub where no one appears to be working. Simon Rifkind's parents stand silently in the kitchen and fail to respond to him when he calls to them. Even with the shocking death of Mike Priddle, Goodman doesn't contact the police.

There are also further moments of foreshadowing to the reveal of Goodman's dark secret long before the Ghost Stories ending.

There are also further moments of foreshadowing to the reveal of Goodman's dark secret long before the Ghost Stories ending. The numbers that mark the side of the tunnel Callahan goes down are seen throughout the movie. Goodman initially meets Tony in a pub called The 10th Number. In Simon Rifkind's house, Goodman sees a photo of the tunnel with himself and the two bullies and wipes away the dust to find Callahan in the picture as well. While meeting Priddle in his house, a dripping sound is heard which is actually the sound of the tunnel.

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What Is The Real Meaning Of Ghost Stories Ending?

Guilt And Toxic Masculinity Are Main Themes In Ghost Stories

Despite everything that appeared before, the ending of Ghost Stories shows it's not a paranormal horror movie. Goodman is heavily invested in his mantra that "The brain sees what it wants to see," but he's also deeply invested in the idea that only other people are fooled by their brains and that he is gifted with a rare ability to see things rationally and clearly. Because of this, he never questions the nature of his reality. When he sees strange things happening, he dismisses them as his mind playing tricks on him - thereby missing the biggest trick of all.

On a broader level, the three cases that Goodman investigates are each a manifestation of something that he feels guilty about: Tony's story is about his regrets for not spending more time with his catatonic father. Simon's story, which is infused with Simon's panic about lying to his father about having a driving license, is about Goodman's guilt over never telling anyone about Callahan's death. Finally, Mike's story is about Goodman's regret over throwing all his effort into his career and never having children.

It's also no accident that the film's characters are almost exclusively male

It's also no accident that the film's characters are almost exclusively male, as one of Ghost Stories' broader themes is, as Nyman puts it, "that suffocating male bulls**t and the different versions that takes and how crippling it is." Each of the men that Goodman speaks to struggles in some way to talk about what happened to them: Tony is hostile and responds aggressively to even the simplest questions; Simon is socially awkward and stuttering; and Mike speaks flippantly about sensitive issues, like his desire to become a father and the fertility problems he and his wife went through.

The reveal that Goodman has attempted to kill himself is the culmination of the movie's deeper message about how men's struggle to articulate their feelings can be hugely damaging. Nyman elaborates: