Is Ghostland Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 7 out of 10. It's a brutal home invasion, and the cruelty is hard to watch.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
7 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
High
Expect to check the locks and think about the candy truck for a few days.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, nothing happens to the dog.
Ruling: Skip it if home invasions are your line, because the movie spends most of its time there.
Ghostland runs 91 minutes and starts with a mother and her two daughters moving into a dead aunt's house. A candy truck has been following them.
The premise, briefly
Two sisters live through a home invasion as teenagers, and sixteen years later one of them is called back to the house by the other, where things stop making sense.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Beth and Vera are still teenagers held in the house, and their mother Pauline was killed long ago. They escape, are recaptured, and Beth fights back until a state trooper shoots the Fat Man and the Candy Truck Woman. Both sisters live.
The scene you're dreading
The break-in, early on: the Fat Man and the Candy Truck Woman attack the family on their first night in the house, and the Fat Man rapes Vera. It happens before the twist.
The dog
The dog is fine: nothing happens to it in Ghostland.
It is a brutal movie about being held captive, and the sisters survive, though the road to that is hard to sit through.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
An inherited house with a candy truck in the driveway
Pauline takes her teenage daughters Beth and Vera to a secluded house that her late sister Clarisse left the family in her will. Along the way Beth reads about a series of home invasions where the parents are murdered and the daughters are left alive. Nobody in the car knows that someone in a candy truck is trailing them. Pauline, Beth and Vera pull up to the house and start unpacking, which is the last ordinary thing they do in this movie.
Soon after the family settles in, two intruders come in. One is a large man called the Fat Man, and the other is a woman called the Candy Truck Woman. They attack the family early in the movie. The Fat Man rapes Vera, and Beth tries to run but is caught by the Candy Truck Woman. Beth asks what they want, and the woman answers that they want to play with dolls. As the movie first shows it, Pauline ends up killing both intruders. This is the scene people dread most, and it comes before the movie jumps ahead, so you can brace for it.
Sixteen years of success, then a phone call
The story jumps forward sixteen years. Beth now writes horror novels in Chicago and has a husband and a son. On a talk show she promotes Incident in a Ghostland, a book based on that night. Then Vera calls in a panic and begs her to come back to Clarisse's house, where Vera still lives with Pauline. Pauline tells Beth that Vera never recovered from the trauma, has delusions, and locks herself in a padded room downstairs. Beth has strange dreams, and Vera insists the people who attacked them are still searching for them. In the middle of an episode, Beth finds Vera chained up and made up like a doll. Pauline phones for an ambulance and tells Beth to disregard Vera. Beth falls asleep and the Candy Truck Woman captures her.
The fantasy gives out
Beth wakes up bruised and finds Vera injured in the basement, and she blames Vera for what happened to both of them. Vera tells her to face the truth: the Candy Truck Woman killed Pauline the night of the break-in, and the sisters are still teenagers held captive in Clarisse's house. Beth's adult life, the book and the husband, was a hallucination. The Candy Truck Woman puts a doll's outfit on Beth and shuts her in with a pile of dolls. The Fat Man smashes the dolls and then goes after Beth, who fights him off and runs. She frees Vera and they get out to a road, where a pair of state troopers stops to help and radios dispatch. The Candy Truck Woman shoots both troopers and recaptures the girls.
The ending, explained
Beth retreats into her adult fantasy again and meets her idol, H.P. Lovecraft, at a cocktail party, where he tells her the novel is a masterpiece. She hears Vera screaming and chooses to go back and save her. In real life she escapes from the Fat Man and fights the Candy Truck Woman. Another state trooper turns up and shoots them both dead, the Fat Man and the Candy Truck Woman. Once help arrives, Beth has a vision of her mother waving from the house as the two sisters are sent to a hospital. Pauline is the only one the sisters lose. Beth and Vera both live.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, nothing happens to the dog.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Ghostland scary?
Ghostland is a 7 out of 10 with high dread. It has jump scares and a home invasion that keeps getting worse.
How does Ghostland end?
Beth and Vera are still teenagers held captive in the house. Beth fights back, a state trooper shoots both captors, and the sisters are taken to a hospital alive.
Does the dog die in Ghostland?
No, nothing happens to the dog in Ghostland.
Is there a post-credits scene in Ghostland?
No. Ghostland has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Is Beth's adult life real in Ghostland?
No. Beth's career as an author, her husband and her son are a hallucination she retreats into while she and Vera are still held captive in Clarisse's house as teenagers.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Ghostland is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can skip the 91 minutes of Ghostland and still know what happens. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror before you see it.
