Gone in the Night: the mystery thriller’s ending, explained

Gone in the Night is a movie about a guy’s disappearance spending a night in a cabin with his girlfriend. Where did he go? Let’s find out.

Kath and Max’s little getaway

Max takes Kath to a remote cabin in a redwood forest for an adventure trip. He was her adult education student and they’ve been together for almost a year. Their age gap has impacted their relation by then.

Upon arriving, they are faced with a little surprise. There’s another couple present and Max talks to him if they can spend a night because driving again for hours at night would be tiring for Kath, as he doesn’t drive. Greta tells her boyfriend Al that it’s okay and they bring their things inside.

A peculiar stay with complete strangers

Max seems excited at the prospect, Kath- not so much, but she relents. The couples decide to play Pillow Talkers, a game to increase intimacy. Kath talks about her simple first date while Greta’s stories are a bit crass. She even licks Max’s elbow for a challenge. After that, Kath goes to sleep while the others stay awake. They plan to go to see the ocean in the morning.

Morning comes and Kath finds herself alone in the cabin. She wanders out in their search but finds Max’s limited-edition cap in the forest. A teary-eyed Al tells her that Greta and Max ran away. Kath is shocked and drives away.

A week later, on her friend’s insistence she tries to find why and where did they both ran off.

Meeting Nicholas and finding Greta

She reaches out to Nicholas, the property owner, through a web search to get Greta’s information under pretence. But it backfires as he comes to her store. She comes clean and asks him out for a coffee to apologise. There, she tells him her story and gets to know about how he’s a biotech genius who turned away from a wealthy deal.

He talks her out of confronting Greta as it’d do her no good. Yet, a couple days later, they stage a stake-out outside Greta’s address. They follow her walking to a disco-like place in an abandoned building and Kath finally comes face-to-face with her.

New friendships and flashbacks

Greta tells Kath that she just couldn’t resist Max and didn’t want to let him go- so they fled. Kath sees a picture of them as a wallpaper and leaves with Nicholas. He tells her about the reason he walked away from the deal- his father’s genetic disease and death. He bought that cabin to research about the condition and treatment.

But flashbacks which cut through the present scenes show that Max knew Greta and Al from before! Having met them once when getting liquor. Greta invites an impressionable naive Max to a concert deep in the redwoods and gives him the address of the cabin. And Max takes Kath there.

Greta and Al were shocked once Max arrived but decided to go through with their plan. A plan to find a suitable match for Nicholas’ treatment. Something he was unaware of but still used Max.

Kath visits Nicholas at his cabin and finds shocking facts

One day, Kath drops by Nicholas’ cabin to thank for helping her. They drink tea and talk a bit before Nicholas goes out to get firewood. As Kath wanders, she comes across a picture of Nicholas with who looks like Al.

Suspicious, she sees a locked door, opening it using the keys he left behind and sees a shed outside the window. On the other hand, Nicholas goes out and talks to hiding Greta and Al, his son, and talk about why she’s here.

Greta runs inside to stop her but by then, Kath has already wandered to the shed and has it open- to find Max alive and under transfusion. Nicholas and others come to stop her from pulling it off, citing he’ll die. He and Max now share a single source of blood, a transfusion therapy he was researching about- and is essential for him to live.

The final take-down and climax

Greta interrupts it by saying that he tested negative for the genetic disorder and is just being selfish by trying to stay youthful using Max’s blood. Kath suddenly tells Nicholas that she understands his reasons and wants to stay young too, but by using Greta’s blood.

Nicholas and Al subdue Greta and seeing opportunity, Kath starts walking away with Max. She’s stopped by them and that’s when Max comes a little to his senses, asks Kath to run and takes off the transfusion, dying. Kath runs and locks the shed behind her.

But just as she’s leaving, she realises something.

The ending- what is Kath going to do?

In the end, Kath gets tempted by the woods and the cabin, looking at its interior and calmness. She really did need a break from the hustling city life and supposedly, stays there.

Talking about the underlying theme to Screen Rant, actor John Gallagher Jr. says it, “…is mortality and aging and this never ending human need to stay young […] even though we all know very, very well, by now that that’s not a viable option, it’s not a possibility.”