We can get ourselves into some weird places as humans. We are capable of horrific self-abuse and sadism. We murder and cheat and betray the people closest to us, justify genocide, and worship charismatic leaders. We mutilate ourselves, torment our own psyche, believe monstrous philosophies and kill or castigate to defend them. There is a lot of horror in the world. So why does Goodnight Mommy tear the real horror from the heart of its story and replace it with an artificial plot contrivance that we’ve seen in other movies with equally trite endings? Why won’t this twist ending die?

Goodnight Mommy Ending Spoilers: Twist Explained

Spoilers: Goodnight Mommy ends with a main character who didn’t exist all along, the figment of another main character’s imagination. If you’ve seen The Machinist, Identity, Fight Club, or Haute Tension you know this stupid twist. The best friend didn’t exist! The killer wasn’t even really there! It was all just an overly-literal manifestation of guilt!

The split personality twist uses a psychological gimmick to squash real and vibrant psychology.

Goodnight Mommy Trailer

Enough Already, Goodnight Mommy

Goodnight Mommy is a harrowing movie precisely because of the psychological complexity that the movie’s ending twist smashes into nonexistence. Play is scary in Goodnight Mommy. Kids fighting and scrapping and running around is violent and probably all-too familiar to audience members who may not have remembered just how nasty and prone to rock-throwing they once were. A mother can be the haven from this violent outside world. Or, as is the case in far too many families, the interior family life can incubate violence, making the household a place of sharp edges and constant fear.

Goodnight Mommy thrives in this surreal and dangerous world between horror filmmaking and all-too-real broken humanity. Sure, Goodnight Mommy is loaded with cockroach-eating, naked forest freak-outs, and Damien Hirst Halloween decorations (cat, meet tank), but the real current of horror is neglect, dysfunction, and the dark perversions of family that are typically never pushed on us beyond awful headlines.

This then is a realm of ambiguity and sickness. It is the plane horror lives on and to be brought down to the level of a bad thriller gotcha is incredibly disappointing.

It’s also just plain old bad moviemaking. I’m more than happy to go along with a movie that abandons the literal for the spiritual, or sublime, or horrific. Did Lukas and Elias really find their mangy cat inside some sort of mass grave? Did a cockroach really scutter down Mama’s throat without her noticing? Can you really change yourself into gold? These are moments that ask you to be satisfied pondering around the question, without ever demanding an answer.

Or, I guess we can make lame excuses for why a transparent twist that brooks no ambiguity is a good thing.

A thudding, literal plot twist like “everything you thought was done by two boys was done by one” can’t help but inspire thud-literal questions. Was Elias just tossing pieces of ice at himself for hours? Slapping himself in the bathtub? Is he some sort of stunted moron? How did he untie his mother AND hold a crossbow on her at the same time?

These are questions it’d be more fun never having to ask in the first place. But by ripping us out of ambiguity—pulling the viewer away from the push-pull of Elias and Lukas’ paranoia—we are left with nothing but half-clever literalism.

There are all sorts of interesting familial evils going on that are utterly destroyed by the reveal that Lukas is a dumb imaginary friend. If Mommy was vengeful enough to pick a favorite and neglect one of two twins, Goodnight Mommy would be a more disturbing movie. If the twins were so psychotically aligned that they had the same dreams then that would be more frightening than an imaginary friend. If it were more about children confronting their vulnerable mother with her past neglect, Goodnight Mommy would be a more insightful movie.

Which is what sucks most about the twist ending to Goodnight Mommy: for a good chunk of Goodnight Mommy the movie IS that more thought-provoking and frightening manifestation. But then that horrible twist comes along, reducing every bit of psychological complexity to a lame magic trick you’ve already seen done better.