No One Gets Out Alive ending explained: How Ambar breaks the cycle

No One Gets Out Alive opens with the familiar horror beats of cheap housing, cold hallways, and a woman trying to make something of a life with barely anything to hold on to. Ambar’s new place isn’t just run-down, it feels straight up wrong. But she’s got nowhere else to go. And that’s what makes the horror hit harder because you know from the start that there's no choice for an escape. Her desperation becomes one of the most frightening aspects of the film.

At first, the fear is subtle. Flickering bulbs, footsteps in empty halls, a quiet presence in the corners of the frame. But the tension builds with every small, strange thing, like the house testing her, figuring out what she’ll tolerate. Ambar, stuck between grief and survival, keeps pushing through it, even as things start slipping from unsettling into outright terrifying. And then the film begins to reveal its deeper motivations, the rituals, the symbolism, and the horror of a haunted house. Here's what happens in the ending of No One Gets Out Alive.

What is No One Gets Out Alive about?

Still from No One Gets Out Alive (Image via Netflix)

The plot of No One Gets Out Alive revolves around Ambar, an immigrant who comes to America seeking a fresh start. With little money and close to no connections, she finds herself living in a creepy boarding house where the owner is a little too eager to take money from her. However, the house is a lot less comforting than one might have imagined, and although she's accustomed to the discomfort, the unease begins to fester. The rooms are filled with strange relics, stone altars, and a sinister atmosphere overall. She starts seeing shadows that move wrong, figures that vanish when she looks twice.

And then there’s Becker, Red’s brother. Hollow-eyed, twitchy, always nearby. There's something broken in him, as she suspects something sinister. What was supposed to be a stepping stone out of misery quickly turns into something else. Ambar, exhausted and isolated, is about to learn that some houses don’t want tenants. They want offerings.

Ambar’s hope of improving her situation is crushed when she entrusts her savings to a co-worker who promises to get her fake citizenship papers, only to vanish with the money. When Ambar confronts her boss about the co-worker’s address, he fires her. With no job, no money, and no help from the only family she has in the country, she tries to leave the house for good.

But desperation brings her back. Red lures her in with the promise of returning her deposit, only to trap her inside once more. Becker drugs her, and Ambar begins to lose her grip on her surroundings. She’s joined by two Romanian women living in the house, who discuss visions of a stone box that haunts their dreams. One of them begins to sing a strange lullaby, lulling Ambar into sleep and pulling her deeper into whatever dark force controls the house.

The secret of the boarding house

Ambar wakes up restrained, watching in horror as Red and Becker prepare the two Romanian women for something clearly sinister. She lashes out, trying to stop them, but Becker throws her violently against the wall. Red, exhausted and strangely resigned, opens up to Ambar. He explains that their father, an archaeologist, brought back a strange stone box from Mexico in 1963. Obsessed with it, their parents began sacrificing women to whatever entity lived inside it, believing it offered healing in return. The ghosts Ambar’s been seeing are victims. After their mother was sacrificed, Red and Becker murdered their father. And even though they wanted to leave, they ended up staying behind, convinced the sacrifices were necessary for Becker's survival.

Soon after, Becker returns and drags a screaming Ambar down to the basement. There, she sees that one of the women has already been decapitated. He ties her to a stone altar in front of the box and leaves, sealing the door.

The horror inside the house in No One Gets Out Alive

The ending of No One Gets Out Alive clarifies the horrors within the house. Becker forces Ambar to drink wine and smears blood on her face before tying her to a stone slab. Soon, it triggers a vivid vision of her mother complimenting her hair, a memory twisted by grief and guilt.

Meanwhile, the creature from the box, a grotesque hybrid of moth and spider with a veiled human face, emerges. It kills through psychic manipulation, appearing as loved ones to its victims, but Ambar resists. In her vision, her mother begs her to stay, but Ambar resists. She suffocates the vision, fighting back both the monster and her trauma. She strangles her mother, and this act of defiance causes the creature to retreat. The film suggests the monster only accepts willing sacrifices, and Ambar’s refusal breaks its hold over her, saving her. The creature, identified as the Aztec goddess Ītzpāpālōtl, recoils and disappears into the box.

Snapping back to reality, Ambar hears one of the women, Petra, being prepared for sacrifice. She retrieves a macuahuitl from upstairs and confronts Red and Becker. Becker attacks her, breaking her ankle and killing Petra by throwing her off the balcony. But Ambar regains control, slashing Becker’s throat and smashing his skull.

She then captures Red, ties him to the stone altar, and offers him to the creature. It bites off his head, and Ambar watches silently. As she hobbles toward the door, her broken ankle miraculously heals. Her veins darken like Becker’s, and a moth lands gently on her hand, a symbol of her connection to the creature. She turns back toward the basement, now visibly changed. The film's title, No One Gets Out Alive, is an indication of all the women the siblings murder inside its walls, and Ambar becomes the only person who manages to make it out alive.

The ending leaves Ambar’s fate open-ended. She may have inherited the role Becker once held, but whether she’ll use that power for good or become the next keeper of the monster is left uncertain. The house took everything from her, but it may have given something back.

No One Gets Out Alive is available to stream on Netflix.