What actually happens
Rose loses her keys in the wrong ballroom
Rose Elliot, a poet living alone in New York, comes across an old book called The Three Mothers, written by an alchemist named Varelli. It describes three evil sisters who rule through sorrow, tears and darkness, each living in a house the alchemist built: Mater Suspiriorum in Freiburg, Mater Lachrymarum in Rome and Mater Tenebrarum in New York. Rose suspects her own building is one of the houses and writes to her brother Mark, who studies music in Rome, asking him to come. Following the book's clues, she finds a hole in the cellar floor that leads to a ballroom full of water. She drops her keys, climbs in to look for them, and a rotting corpse floats up from below. She screams and starts to drown, but she makes it out. Someone is still watching her.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
Mark skips class and loses a letter
In Rome, Mark tries to read Rose's letter in class but is distracted by a beautiful student staring at him, and he leaves the letter behind when he follows her out. His friend Sara finds it, gets scared by what it says and takes a taxi to a library to find a copy of the book. A monstrous figure attacks her in a laboratory there, and she escapes. At home she phones Mark and asks her neighbor Carlo to stay with her. The lights go out, and a gloved killer stabs them both. Mark finds the bodies and two torn pieces of the letter, then sees the staring student pass by in a taxi. In New York, Rose sees two shadowy figures about to enter her apartment. She slips out the back, but a clawed attacker grabs her and kills her with a piece of broken window glass.
Mark follows the blood and promptly faints
Mark arrives at Rose's building and meets Carol, the concierge, along with some residents, including a nurse who looks after the elderly Professor Arnold, who is in a wheelchair and cannot speak. The sickly Countess Elise tells him that Rose has disappeared. Mark and Elise spot blood on the carpet by Rose's door, and Mark follows the trail until he feels sick and passes out. Elise sees a figure in a black robe drag him away, but the figure drops him and goes after her instead. A swarm of vicious cats attacks Elise as she tries to escape, and the figure then catches up to her and stabs her. Mark makes his way to the foyer on his own, and Carol and the nurse tuck him into bed.
Kazanian has a bad night at the pond
Mark questions Kazanian, the antique dealer who sold Rose the book, about where his sister went, and gets no answer. That night Kazanian carries several cats to a Central Park pond and drowns them. This is the scene people brace for, and it comes near the end. He then falls into the water himself, and hundreds of rats pour out of a drain nearby and crawl all over him, chewing. A hot dog vendor hears him screaming and runs over, then kills him with a knife. More strange deaths follow in the building. Carol and Elise's butler, John, are busy planning to steal the Countess's valuables when Carol finds John's body in the Countess's apartment and lets a lit candle fall. A fire starts, her clothes catch in burning drapes, and she falls from a window and dies.
The ending, explained
Mark follows a clue from Rose's letter and finds a crawl space under every floor. Through the hidden passages he reaches a suite where Professor Arnold, speaking through a mechanical voice box, says that he is Varelli. Varelli tries to inject Mark with a needle, and in the struggle his neck gets caught in the voice apparatus and he chokes. Mark frees him, and Varelli dies saying Mark is still being watched. Mark follows a shadowy figure into a lavish room and finds the nurse, who laughs, reveals that she is Mater Tenebrarum and turns into Death. The fire has eaten much of the building, and it gives Mark a way out. Debris falls on Tenebrarum and destroys her. Rose, Sara, Carlo, Elise, Kazanian, Carol, John and Varelli do not make it.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether Inferno has a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Inferno scary?
Yes. Inferno is a 6 out of 10 with medium dread: it has jump scares and sudden murders, and the dread lasts about a night.
How does Inferno end?
Mark finds out that the building's nurse is Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness. A fire lets him escape, and falling debris destroys her.
Does the dog die in Inferno?
No. No dog dies in Inferno. Cats do: Kazanian drowns a bag of them in a Central Park pond, and a cat is bludgeoned on a chair elsewhere in the film.
Is there a post-credits scene in Inferno?
Nobody has confirmed whether Inferno has a scene after the credits.
Who are the Three Mothers in Inferno?
In Inferno, the Three Mothers are three witches described in an alchemist's book: Mater Suspiriorum in Freiburg, Mater Lachrymarum in Rome and Mater Tenebrarum in New York. Rose's building is the New York house.
