Megan Is Missing Ending Explained: What Happened In The Barrel Scene

Summary Megan Is Missing presents a horrifying tale of online danger involving brutal torture, sexual assault, and murder of two 14-year-old girls.

The film serves as a stark warning about the dangers of online interactions and the importance of strong family relationships for young people.

Viewers are subjected to shocking imagery and a disturbing ending that leaves them feeling empty, highlighting the grim reality of online predators.

The following article contains discussions of murder, extreme violence, sexual violence, and torture.

Megan Is Missing is a 2011 psychological horror movie and some of its most terrifying scenes, including a particular one with a barrel, are hard to watch. Another entry in the long line of found footage horror movies, Megan Is Missing comes from cinematographer and director Michael Goi, who also helmed the 2019 supernatural horror Mary starring Gary Oldman. Megan Is Missing depicts the days leading up to the disappearance of Megan Stewart (Rachel Quinn) and, weeks later, her friend Amy Herman (Amber Perkins) after they both begin online messaging with a mysterious man named "Josh" (Dean Waite).

The story is told via webcams, home movies, and news reports that depict an increasingly horrific tale about torture, mutilation, sexual assault, and murder. It's an incredibly brutal film and the fact that the two main characters who suffer these fates are supposed to be 14 makes it a particularly difficult watch. This combination of shock and horror led to Megan Is Missing becoming a strange TikTok challenge that revitalized interest in the film in the 2020s. There's a lesson about online safety and healthy parent-child relationships, but viewers will have to wade through some shocking imagery to find it.

Related Where To Watch Megan Is Missing Are you ready for a fright? Find out where to watch Megan Is Missing, a disturbing horror movie from 2011 that was banned in some countries.

Josh Releases Graphic Photos Of Megan

The TikTok Challenge Involves Grisly Photos Shown On Screen

When Megan begins communicating with the mysterious Josh online, she imagines he is just a shy older boy and, despite some unsettling messages that imply he's been watching her at times without her knowing, Megan is still interested in the internet stranger. She agrees to meet with Josh and subsequent CCTV footage shows Megan being grabbed by the wrist and dragged away. Amy, who has disliked the relationship between Megan and Josh from the start, begins investigating him and manages to get in touch with the stranger.

As soon as Amy lets it slip she suspects his involvement in Megan's disappearance, Josh becomes enraged and threatens Amy. To cap it off, and prove his guilt, Josh posts photos online of Megan. In the photographs, Megan is tied to a pillory table, bloody and beaten, with her eyes, nose, and mouth forced open. It's incredibly horrifying. Up until that point in Megan Is Missing, the horror has been implied. With these photographs in the last third of the film, Megan Is Missing ratchets up another gear into a truly disturbing horror movie.

Amy Is Abducted And Tortured By Josh

Josh Assaults Amy In His Torture Chamber

While gut-wrenching, the photos don't deter Amy and even spur her on. While recording a video diary under a bridge where she and Megan used to spend time together and share secrets, Amy is suddenly grabbed and abducted. Now it's "Josh" who is filming, and what he shows on his camera is as horrendous as the photographs he shared. The footage is watched back by investigators who find Amy's video camera in a trashcan and, if that's not a bad enough sign, the next part of the film goes into explicit detail about what happened.

In the footage, Josh is shown unlocking the vault door to a torture chamber. Megan is nowhere in sight, but Amy is chained to the wall. The 14-year-old begs for her stuffed animal teddy bear but is force-fed dog food instead. It's all from a handheld camera, so the footage is not as graphic and clear as something along the lines of Hostel, but it's gruesome enough and the idea alone is ghastly. What happens next is so appalling that when the online challenge began to gain traction, director Goi felt obligated to post a warning on his TikTok,

"Do not watch the movie in the middle of the night. Do not watch the movie alone. And if you see the words 'photo number one' pop up on your screen, you have about four seconds to shut off the movie if you're already kind of freaking out before you start seeing things that maybe you don't want to see."

Talk about a trigger warning. Goi specifically refers to the photograph scene that happened earlier, but the next scene is just as bad. Josh sexually assaults Amy in a sequence that lasts nearly three minutes with the camera focused on Amy's face only. It's the kind of scene that tests even the most hardened horror vet's endurance. Once it's over, there's still one more traumatic scene to go.

Megan Is Missing is one of the earliest cases of a computer screen film, a genre that would be made more popular with films like Host and Unfriended​​​​​​.

Josh Puts Amy In A Barrel With Megan's Corpse

Megan's Body Is Found Rotted Away After Josh Killed Her

After her ordeal, Josh makes Amy an offer. He will let her go if she agrees to climb into a large plastic barrel, the kind that chemicals are usually stored in. Fans of Breaking Bad will recognize the barrel as one of Walter White's favorite corpse disposal methods and be wise to the incoming jumpscare, but others are up for a traumatic scene. Amy believes Josh and walks over to the barrel. When he unscrews the lid, the camera and Amy look down simultaneously to reveal the rotten, foggy-eyed corpse of Megan, her mouth still open in a scream.

The camera cuts away quickly, but Amy's shrieks continue as Josh forces her into the barrel alongside her friend's body. As he closes up the barrel, Amy can be heard pleading for her life, begging Josh to let her out. The scene then changes to somewhere outdoors, where Josh is digging a hole in the ground. As he drags the barrel towards the hole, Amy can be weakly heard asking Josh why he's doing this, and how much she loves him.

It's a hopeless and depressing scene and Josh does not say a word, so it's simply the sound of digging and Amy actor Amber Perkins talking for a minute and a half without even being on-screen.

It's a hopeless and depressing scene and Josh does not say a word, so it's simply the sound of digging and Amy actor Amber Perkins talking for a minute and a half without even being on-screen. People who have seen the scene on TikTok or YouTube have discussed how awful it made them feel upon seeing it. @Mizuki_Fortnite commented,

"When she was about to get buried, she seemed so calm and defeated. 'I love you, Josh, please don't do this.' She seemed like all hope was lost."

@alexthomas962 wrote,

"This might be the most disturbing ending to any film I've ever seen."

Another user, @da8171, commented,

"Good but depressing movie... The ending made me feel just empty."

The Real Meaning Of Megan Is Missing's Ending

Online Safety And Strong Family Ties Can Protect Young People

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If viewers can get past the shocking imagery and plot of Megan Is Missing, there's a message in the film about online safety. Megan meets Josh online after a friend of hers shares her social media handle with him. The two begin chatting back and forth and while it's clear to the audience and Amy that something isn't right, Megan continues to believe she's messaging a 17-year-old who she could start a relationship with. Megan's cavalier attitude with the internet is one of the reasons she is enticed into putting herself in a deadly situation.

Amy's disregard for the real danger of people online is also what puts her at risk. Megan Is Missing is not saying that the girls did this to themselves, but it is making a grisly point that there can be criminals on the other side of any screen, posing as someone else. Less annunciated, but maybe more important is the theme of family in the movie. Megan's popularity in school hides a dark home life. Her father went to jail for molesting her and her mother has treated her horribly since, blaming her daughter for going to the police.

It's no coincidence that Amy who, though bullied at school, has a loving family and is the one who senses the dangers of Megan's chats with Josh before Megan does. She has people who support her and love her, and who she can love back without any complexities. They can have a serious conversation about safety. Megan does not have that. For all her popularity, she's left to her own devices by her family, and she gets snatched up for it in Megan Is Missing.