Delusion

Delusion

Year: 1981

Runtime: 91 mins

Language: English

Director: Alan Beattie

Horror

Meredith Stone, a home‑care nurse, is tasked with looking after the bedridden billionaire Ivar Langrock in his isolated country estate. Strange noises lead her to discover Ivar’s violent, locked‑away son. When Ivar’s grandson Gabriel arrives, a hidden killer begins murdering family members and staff throughout the manor.

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Delusion (1981) – Full Plot Summary & Ending Explained

Read the complete plot breakdown of Delusion (1981), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.

Meredith Stone, a nurse, recounts, in a letter to her father, her mother’s recent death, and details a job she has taken at a Fairlawn estate caring for the wealthy, elderly Ivar Langrock. There, she is greeted by his butler, Phillip Langrock, and Jeffrey Fraser, Ivar’s attorney. She finds herself almost immediately drawn to a locked room on the second floor of the house. She discovers that Wilfred Langrock, Ivar’s mentally-challenged son, lives in the room. Meredith develops a friendship with Ivar, even confessing to him that her mother had been institutionalized and that her father had raped her mother.

Shortly after Meredith begins working at Fairlawn, Langrock’s adult grandson Gabriel Langrock, who spent his life on a commune in Arizona, comes to stay after the accidental death of his parents. After his arrival, a series of deaths begin to occur; Meredith and Ivar discover his dog hanging from a tree in the garden. Wilfred also dies in what appears to be a suicide when he is found having jumped out the window of his room. Gabriel makes sexual advances toward Meredith, who finds herself increasingly uncomfortable around him.

Phillip is murdered in the wine cellar, having been crushed under a fallen wine rack and clobbered with a table leg; the police, however, conclude his death an accident, though Jeffrey accuses Gabriel of his murder. Later in the evening, the house gardener, Alex, is confronted at the Fairlawn estate by the detective, Detective, in a garage, who tells him the coroner has deemed Philip’s death a murder. After he leaves, Alex hears a commotion behind him, and upon returning, he finds the detective dead. The unseen killer also attacks Alex, beating him to death.

Meredith, while searching the house, discovers a bloodied table leg, and calls Jeffrey, panicked. He tells her he is on his way to the house. Just as Jeffrey arrives, she discovers Gabriel’s body stuffed in a closet. Jeffrey confronts her, and tells her that he has just returned from the hospital where Meredith claimed her mother was kept, and reveals that her mother died during Meredith’s birth; he also accuses her of the murders, telling her she had been institutionalized for murdering her father, who had molested her. She then attacks Jeffrey with the table leg, and storms downstairs to kill Ivar. However, Ivar manages to knock her unconscious with a cane.

The film closes as Meredith narrates her letter to her father, saying that maybe she will be able to return to Fairlawn one day to take care of Ivar.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 14:22

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