‘Nocturne’ ending explained: Sydney Sweeneys’ horror film ends on a crass and ambiguous note

Disclaimer: This article contains Nocturnal spoilers. Surely you knew that when you clicked on it.

If you are looking for something to distract yourself, well, everything, Nocturnal on Amazon Prime is a decent 90-minute escape, especially if you’re into unsettling psychological thrillers with a sprinkle of satanic rituals dotted around.

Written and directed by Zu Quirke during his directorial debut, Nocturnal stars Sydney Sweeney as a teenage pianist who attends a luxury arts boarding school with her slightly more talented twin sister Vivian (Madison Iseman). Juliette dreams of nothing less than the best and only applies to one college: Julliard. Unfortunately, she does not enter. Worse yet, his sister enters.

The two sisters return from spring break to complete their last semester. The school is in shock over the recent death of a student named Moira, who allegedly carved strange designs into her bedroom wall, before jumping off the roof of a building. Juliet stumbles upon Moira’s old notebook, which is filled with scary scores and satanic drawings on things like ‘invocation’, ‘consumption’ and ‘purification’. She becomes convinced that the drawings happen to her in real life and help her become a better musician than her sister, but the last page has been torn. One evening, in a trance, Juliette draws the final drawing: “Sacrifice”.

You know, just the occasional sibling rivalry stuff. There’s a bunch of other stuff in there involving stealing boyfriends and sleeping with music teachers, but none of that really matters in the end. Let’s enter the Nocturnal end, explained.

HOW? ‘OR’ WHAT NIGHT END?

Just before Juliette’s big performance, Vivian visits her sister in her dressing room. She drops a bombshell: there probably won’t be a Julliard scout in the crowd, as Juliet had expected, as Julliard doesn’t send scouts. Juliette’s hopes of getting a last minute acceptance into her dream music school are shattered.

She takes the stage to perform her play, but just like she did as a child in her first solo performances, she freezes. She leaves the stage and hides in a closet. Then, almost in a trance, she follows a luminous exit sign on the roof of the building. She deliberates on the edge, gazing at a statue below, and sees a light again, which takes the shape of the sun on the front of Moira’s notebook. Juliette smiles, walks on the ledge, then comes abruptly into the concert hall. She realizes that she hasn’t left the stage after all. She played her piece beautifully, earning a standing ovation. She accepts a bouquet of roses and smiles, realizing the vision she saw earlier in the film.

Unless, wait, no, that’s not really what happened. The final shot in the film is Juliet’s mutilated body impaled on the statue, using the last of her strength to smile as she experiences her final moments in a fantasy of fame and success. This is a gruesome, gruesome photo that is not for the faint of heart.

WHAT IS THE NIGHT END, EXPLAINED?

Perhaps there is an argument to be made that the latest shot of Juliet’s corpse is more of a symbolic death of “old” Juliet. (Sorry, old Juliet can’t come on the phone right now. She’s dead!) As the camera pulls back, the students move around campus and no one seems to notice the bloody corpse in the middle of the quad, which could suggest it is not real.

However, I tend to believe that Juliette really jumped off that ledge and died. We already know that the image of her holding a bouquet of roses in front of a standing ovation is a Juliet fantasy, as we saw earlier in the film. While Juliet is haunted by seemingly supernatural events throughout the film, no one else is confirming that these events are real. Max didn’t see the light until Vivian fell off the cliff, and no one sees the blood on her hands either. The blood on her bed, which Vivian sees, was really her period. Finally, as is unfortunately a common trope in movies like this, Juliet is taking medication for her anxiety, which suggests that she may not be on her mind.

Basically the Nocturnal the ending is ambiguous, but most signs point to Juliette going crazy with her dream of becoming a successful musician. Deep down, she knew she would never make this dream come true. The moral of the story? Maybe we should stop pressuring children to “make their dreams come true” and start encouraging them to live their lives.

Watch Nocturnal on Amazon Prime