Sean King O’Grady’s We Need To Do Something ends horrifically, with the last two potential survivors being killed offscreen by an entity shrouded in mystery — here's what the ending means. Based on Max Booth III’s eponymous novella, We Need To Do Something navigates the fabric of confinement horror. A family of four is stuck in a bathroom whilst attempting to ride out a thunderstorm. The anxiety of being trapped with a dysfunctional family is palpable throughout this psychological horror, heightened by the threat of the unknown, which lurks right outside the narrative premise.
Before its ending, We Need To Do Something introduces its protagonist, Melissa. Teenage Melissa (Sierra McCormick) is an amalgamation of overused tropes — she is disconnected from her family, battles with a crisis of identity, and expresses herself via her goth attire and pink-infused shimmery eyeshadow. Right from the beginning, Melissa is misplaced and frantic, trying to reach out to her classmate Amy (Lisette Alexis) via texts, which are neither acknowledged nor answered. Her little brother, Bobby (John James Cronin), although terrified of the natural calamity, finds solace in the reassuring words of his mother, Diane (Vinessa Shaw), who is instigated by her volatile husband Robert (Pat Healy) intermittently.
We Need To Do Something's ending employs surrealism, a Rick Roll, and a kind of terror that almost borders on Lovecraftian, as evidenced by a writhing severed tongue with tendrils that the family devours afterward. Stuck in a confined space with no apparent exits, and a familial dynamic palpable with rage and tension, the characters are exposed to a new brand of horror in the course of the days spent within. We Need To Do Something ends with the power of suggestion, a device used throughout by O'Grady to the point of exhaustion.
What We Need To Do Something’s Ending Means
O’Grady indulges in pure shock factor in We Need To Do Something's ending, where the survivors, Diane and Melissa, let out screams as someone hacks at the bathroom door. Before this, Diane had managed to chip away at a loose brick, carving out an opening wide enough for her to pass through and assess the situation outside their home. What happens to Diane is never shown, although she returns terrified, almost catatonic, and drenched in blood, unable to speak of the horrors she encountered outside. Just when Melissa and Diane are on the verge of calming themselves down, terror hacks through the door, and the screen cuts to a vibrant red.
The duo does not survive in We Need to Do Something's ending, but it is unclear as to what is responsible for their deaths, and whether the creatures are manifestations of Melissa’s guilt. Having lost Bobby to a deadly rattlesnake bite, Diane is inconsolable. At the same time, Robert flies into a fit of rage after Melissa’s admission of the hex that potentially brought about this calamity. Rendered blind due to some inexplicable reason, Robert attempts to maim Diane, spurring Melissa to clobber her father to death. Are these events the outcome of a strange, unearthly situation, or mere inevitabilities of an unhealthy family dynamic? How much of Melissa’s visions are premonitions, or are they simply products of an unhinged mind? These questions are never answered by We Need To Do Something, as it chooses to end on a note of obtuse bewilderment.
We Need To Do Something's Creature Explained
While the creature in question is never explicitly shown in We Need to Do Something's ending, it sports a demonic voice and is known to kill almost anyone in sight. This was done to convey doom surrounding a creature that appears to be all-seeing and viciously out for blood. In a disgusting turn of events, Melissa rips off the still-twitching tongue of the demon dog and urges her family to devour it, as they are stuck in a room with no food or supplies. The film's central premise is how the family finds themselves trapped inside, as a huge tree blocks their bathroom door, the room’s only exit.
Thick glass panels adorn the bathroom walls, and the tiles are rendered unbreakable, at least initially. “We need to do something,” Melissa mutters while undergoing a complete psychological breakdown, to which Robert snaps that there is nothing they can do unless external help arrives and rescues them. This sense of inertia pervades the majority of the film, evidenced in the many scenes in which an unearthly growling can be heard from outside, hinting at the presence of the mysterious creature, whose true origins can only be guessed.
Why Do Amy and Melissa Hex Their Classmate?
In a half-baked flashback leading to We Need to Do Something's ending, it is revealed that a classmate of Amy and Melissa, Joe, has stalkerish tendencies to the point of creeping up on the girls and videotaping them having an intimate moment together. Driven by revenge, Amy casts a hex on Joe, using the tongue of a dead dog as the core ingredient in the ritual. Things turn for the worse when Joe ends up dead, and Amy explains how she has suffered from Cotard’s Delusion for years, believing that she is dead in the corporeal sense, and the ritual was a way for her to feel alive. Amy argues that the ritual in question awakened a hibernating entity deep inside her, possessing her and bringing about havoc to the world. While nothing is spelled out clearly, it is hinted that the ritual opens the door to another world, possessing Melissa briefly and then bringing about a thunderstorm that harkened the beginning of the end.
Does The We Need To Do Something Book End The Same Way?
Both the movie We Need to Do Something and its novel counterpart end in similar ways. However, the biggest difference is that the novella's ending is left much more ambiguous, and the girls manage to cause much more destruction. In the book, there is a twister that takes down a tree, blocking the family in. But it ends up being more than a tornado. Interpretations suggest that Melissa and her pal brought about the apocalypse, rather than just a crazy storm. While some say that the movie's supernatural elements detracted from the overall plot, it's an integral piece of the puzzle when one looks at the novella. The rest of the ending remains the same. Diane and Melissa are the only survivors left, and Melissa does get attacked by her friend Amy. We Need to Do Something's book ends with Melissa experiencing horrifying images of the apocalypse, rather than just her and Diane succumbing to the terrifying creature.
Why We Need To Do Something Works So Well
We Need To Do Something is an effective horror movie due to its sheer unpredictability. Offering a trapped room POV is no novelty in survival horror – brought beautifully to life in films such as Fermat's Room and the Canadian horror, Cube – but We Need To Do Something bends the rules of the game and introduces elements that appear discordant in terms of tone and visual style. Moreover, the anxieties of the pandemic are clearly present throughout the film's fabric, especially in the idea of being trapped inside a confined space while facing an unknown threat that seems to be ravaging the world outside. Introducing this element only feeds on people's current fears, introducing a topical aspect to the movie that succeeds. Melissa voices her restlessness right from the start, expressing how the idea of being stuck with her family while losing all contact with the outside world is downright traumatizing for her. However, Melissa’s urge to break free rests on Amy, the quiet, mysterious girl she has fallen for before the horror movie's events.
The nature of the thunderstorm aside, Robert’s behavior amid a high-stakes situation is unnerving, too. Instead of reassuring his kids and working with his wife to get through the situation, Robert indulges in sudden bursts of passion, exuding a kind of nonplussed carelessness that only ups the ante to the already-tense scenario. Between his veiled spats with Diane and constant cussing, Bobby and Melissa seem more terrified of the fraught dynamic between their parents than the horrors of the world without. The only respite offered is in the form of flashbacks to Melissa’s time with Amy, who is revealed to be directly responsible for unleashing something nefarious into the tangible world. In this way, We Need to Do Something creates a frightening pace and manages to keep the terror steadily rising from start to finish.
Interestingly, the first onscreen death is that of a child, Bobby, who is nothing but an innocent bystander of the events around him. We Need to Do Something adds disturbing elements (to its macabre benefit) right out of the gate, with people being forced to witness Bobby’s body rotting away in the bathtub. While the parents unleash hell upon one another, Melissa’s surmounting guilt and terror break through to the present, tearing the barely-together family members apart. Perhaps, the most intriguing part of We Need To Do Something is its surrealist sequences, which seem to add nothing to the main narrative but manage to heighten the absolute terror of dangers beyond comprehension, such as when Melissa hallucinates a tendril-sporting Amy choking the former to death. We Need to Do Something's ending subverts horror expectations, making it an extremely effective addition to the genre.