A mysterious virus sweeps across the world, transforming people into zombie-like creatures with moss, grass, and even small branches growing out of their bodies. Rumors begin to spread that nature itself is reclaiming the planet and wiping out humanity before we destroy the Earth once and for all. That’s the intriguing premise of Die Alone, a new zombie-apocalypse movie written and directed by Lowell Dean. But at it’s heart, Die Alone is something else entirely: a twisted love story.
The movie stars Douglas Smith as Ethan, a young man who struggles with amnesia. Ethan is traveling with his girlfriend Emma (Kimberly-Sue Murray) where they get separated in a car crash. He soon meets Mae (Carrie-Anne Moss), a survivalist who saves him from marauders and offers him a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night.
That night, she cooks him dinner and they dance to a vinyl record of “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells. But after dark, he steels Mae’s car and leaves to try to find Emma. When he fails, Mae has no choice by to rescue him again.
Die Alone uses Ethan’s fractured memories to twist its various timelines until it can be hard to tell what’s happening and when, leaving the audience just as confused as he is. But throughout it all, Ethan is determined to find Emma, even as the world becomes increasingly dangerous and violent. It’s once he does find her, however, that Die Alone reveals its biggest twist.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Die Alone’s ending, explained
Die Alone’s big reveal is partially hidden in the lyrics of the Tommy James and the Shondells song, which plays several times throughout the movie. “Crimson and clover, over and over,” the band sings. As we eventually learn, Ethan is stuck in a loop of his own that repeats over and over as well.
The truth, it turns out, is that Ethan was infected by one of the zombies long ago. This caused his amnesia, but Emma soon realized that as long as she kept feeding him human meat, she could hold off his transformation into a full-blown zombie. There was also a surprising side effect: Ethan stopped aging.
For decades, Emma keeps up this routine. She captures other survivors and chains them up in the basement, amputating their body parts and feeding them to Ethan to keep him alive. Thanks to his amnesia, he has no idea what’s happened or the horrible sins his girlfriend has been forced to commit.
Over time, however, a new problem arises. Emma keeps aging until one day, Ethan stops recognizing her. It’s at this point that she takes on the persona of Mae, determined to keep Ethan alive even if he no longer knows who she is. When Ethan figures this out in the movie it’s heartbreaking, and it only gets worse when Mae reveals that this isn’t the first time he’s come to the same realization.
But as the movie ends, Mae makes a shocking decision. Instead of letting Ethan forget again and maintaining the lie, she gives up. She invites Ethan to bite her so they can both becomes zombies and join the growing horde.
When I ask Moss why she thinks her character makes that choice, she offers a thoughtful response.
“She’s tired,” Moss says. “I remember thinking how much energy and mental fortitude it would’ve taken to continue that charade for all of that time. He doesn't even remember her. Her love is still alive, but I just felt like she just had had enough. She just was done.”
