The Cursed (2022) Plot Summary & Ending Explained

During the Battle of the Somme, a French captain, wounded and bearing three gunshot wounds to his abdomen, is rushed into a medical tent for surgery. Here, an army surgeon uncovers a chilling surprise: a fourth bullet, made of silver and not of German origin, is retrieved from his body.

Flashback thirty-five years earlier to rural France, where the cruel land baron Seamus Laurent (Alistair Petrie) leads a horrific assault on a Romani clan that had settled on his territory. Anticipating violence, the clan's wise elder crafts a set of silver dentures shaped like wolf fangs for their protection. In the aftermath of the massacre, the clan leader is buried alive, clutching her silver fangs tightly, while a captured male Romani serves as a grotesque scarecrow for others.

Soon, townsfolk, including Seamus' own children, Edward (Max Mackintosh) and Charlotte (Amelia Crouch), are haunted by nightmares filled with images of the scarecrow and the ominous silver fangs. One day, while playing, farm boy Timmy (Tommy Rodger) informs the other children of the scarecrow's location. However, when they arrive, Timmy is overtaken by a dark impulse and digs up the silver fangs. Despite Edward's attempts to intervene, Timmy, now possessed, bites Edward’s throat, causing chaos as the terrified children flee. Seamus quickly rushes Edward to safety, though a doctor mistakenly attributes the boy's injuries to a wild animal.

As Edward's condition worsens, Charlotte witnesses him ensnared by vines protruding ominously from his own body. Desperate, she turns to the local church for answers and encounters Timmy, who, having lost memory of the terrifying events, discloses the hiding place of the silver fangs. When Charlotte's maid, Anais (Roxane Duran), discovers them, Timmy panics and escapes into the woods, only to be hunted by an unseen creature in an abandoned shack—where he meets a grim fate.

Widowed pathologist John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) arrives in town to investigate the traveling Romani, joining forces with police lieutenant Alfred Molière (Nigel Betts), called by Seamus to find Edward. They soon uncover the brutal aftermath of Timmy's demise, further convinced that Edward may not be alive. That night, a strange creature attempts to invade Seamus' manor, evoking terror amongst its inhabitants.

The following day, a horrifying rendezvous with the beast claims the lives of two townspeople while leaving Anne-Marie critically injured. John rushes to the town but is too late to stave off Anne-Marie's transformation. He manages to capture and kill the creature, discovering that it had once been Anne-Marie, affirming his fears of a spreading infection. Disclosing to Isabelle (Kelly Reilly) that his family fell victim to such a beast—revealing that Seamus is indeed the orchestrator of the Romani massacre and consequently the target of the terrifying curse—he is on a quest for restitution.

Charlotte reveals the whereabouts of the cursed silver fangs, which John forges into bullets. Shortly after, as the beast attacks again, it manages to bite Anais. In frantic denial, she hides her injury, but soon Seamus, discovering what has transpired, confronts Anais, who has transformed. In a desperate fight, the manor is set ablaze, leading Seamus to choose a tragic self-sacrifice, leaving John in charge of protecting the innocents.

As the night unfolds, Isabelle is lured outside by Edward’s voice, leading to a horrific twist where she allows the beast entry into the church, unleashing chaos upon the terrified townspeople. Seizing the moment, John shoots through Isabelle to save them all from Edward's monstrous form, leading to tragic deaths and revelations.

With losses weighing heavily, John assumes the role of protector for Edward and Charlotte, coming to terms with the horrific legacy left by the silver bullet embedded within Edward. As time passes, an adult Charlotte returns to John, now elderly and bedridden, marking the end of a cursed chapter by handing him the last silver bullet. The haunting echoes of their past linger on as they confront the reality of their shattered lives, forever altered by the shadow of vengeance and tragedy.

The ending of "The Cursed" reveals a tragic cycle rooted in greed, violence, and the consequences of neglecting justice. After a series of brutal events, McBride discovers that the curse is tied to the old gypsy woman's silver fangs, which were used as a cursed object by the landowners to hunt and kill the gypsies, inadvertently unleashing a vengeful beast. Throughout the film, the curse manifests as a monstrous werewolf, which is actually the transformed form of Edward, the Laurent family's adopted son, who was bitten during the chaos. Despite efforts to kill the creature with silver bullets—the only means to contain the curse—the curse persists because the true power resides in the land and its history of violence, not just the physical beast.

In the final moments, Edward, now revealed to have been carrying a cursed silver bullet inside him, succumbs to the curse after years of torment. Charlotte visits McBride on his deathbed to learn that the soldier shot in the first scene at the Battle of the Somme was actually Edward, who carried the cursed item inside him all along. The curse is ultimately shown to be the consequence of the landowner Seamus's greed and violent actions against the gypsies, which awakened a centuries-old vengeance that cannot be easily silenced. The roots growing from the victims symbolize how their blood and suffering remain intertwined with the land and its history, a reminder that evil cannot be eradicated by merely killing the physical creature. In the end, McBride recognizes that the true remedy was acknowledging justice and respecting the land’s history—an acknowledgment Seamus failed to do, bringing about his own downfall. Edward’s fate illustrates how sins from generations past echo through time, passing the curse from one victim to the next, until it claims its final victim in a tragic, inevitable conclusion.