Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Baltasar Kormákur, Netflix’s ‘Apex’ steps into the tropical forests of Australia with Sasha, an experienced climber and thrill seeker who is still recovering from a traumatic incident. To start with a clean slate, she ditches the mountains in favor of a kayaking trip that cuts through a particularly remote region, and there she encounters a man named Ben. Though Ben appears charmingly helpful at first, by the time Sasha realizes that something more sinister is at play, it’s already too late.
Unannounced, Ben declares her his target and arranges an elaborate hunting game meant to resemble a predator toying with its prey. For Sasha, however, this presents the only chance she might have at an escape, and she brings forth all she has to make it happen. By the end of this survival action thriller movie, Sasha’s mysterious past becomes the key to dealing with Ben and determining her future once and for all. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Apex Plot Synopsis
‘Apex’ begins with climbers Sasha and Tommy waking up in a cliff camp atop Norway’s Troll Wall, determined to reach the summit by the end of the day. However, Sasha, the better climber of the two, ends up missing her grip at one particularly tricky spot again and again. When a storm begins to form on the horizon, Tommy convinces her to hold off for now, but by then it’s already too late. That night, the storm forces them to climb down, and in the process, Tommy is hit with a boulder and falls unconscious. Sasha has to make the difficult choice of letting him fall to his death, and then barely manages to survive. Months later, Sasha, now a solo traveler, decides to go kayaking in Australia’s Wandarra National Park, seemingly having bid goodbye to the mountains.
While stocking up for her journey, a group of hunters tries to harass Sasha, but she shrugs them off with the help of a local trucker named Ben. He then guides her to a different, less popular kayaking route than the one she chose, promising better thrills. The trip is as adventurous as she expected. After scaling several miles in the rapids, she decides to camp by the forest, only to wake up the next morning to a strange bird call, and all her supplies are missing. Dejected, she tries kayaking down to the nearest hints of civilization and comes across a small trail leading up to another tent. As it turns out, it belongs to none other than Ben, who initially comes off as friendly but soon reveals a rather twisted side.
It is revealed that it was Ben who stole Sasha’s equipment last night, and though he now returns it to her, it comes with a caveat. Armed with a crossbow, Ben gives her until a song’s duration to get as far from him as possible, following which, he is to hunt her down. Though Sasha tries to escape by her kayak, it gets caught up in the currents, forcing her to travel on foot. Given how well Ben knows the forest, it doesn’t take him long to trap her, and from there he takes her to his ritual site, where he preserves all of his other kills. While he plans to do the same with Sasha, she retaliates by biting his ear off and dragging him to the river with her.
As Sasha and Ben wrestle for control, the river ultimately gives way to a giant waterfall that separates the two. This, in turn, gives Sasha the opening to find a rock and slam it on Ben’s foot, crushing it and initiating a deadlock. However, with no easy way out of the jungle, she realizes that she might have to work together with a serial killer if she wishes to walk free.
Apex Ending: Is Ben Dead? Does Sasha Survive the Climb?
At the end of ‘Apex,’ Sasha lets Ben fall to his death before making the most difficult climb of her life. Though the duo reaches a stalemate after crashing down a waterfall, Sasha realizes that she has the upper hand so long as Ben’s broken foot goes unchecked. Offering a truce, she decides to climb up the canyon with him, all the while secretly planning his death. The perfect opportunity comes when she steps into a cranny from where a single, weakened tree branch is reaching out. After stabilizing herself, she wraps the harness around that branch, hoping that it’ll collapse under the weight right after she unclips Ben from her harness. When Ben inevitably smokes out the plan and tries to bring her down with him, Sasha is left with no choice but to give up on her harness entirely, allowing Ben to fall.
The last we see of Ben is him falling flat on his face and presumably dying on impact. If that isn’t enough, the nearest civilization downstream is another 15 days of walking, which, in his condition, is effectively impossible. In killing him, Sasha ends up answering the question of survivor’s guilt that has been haunting her this entire time. At the start of the movie, she let go of Tommy because he was pulling both of them down while unconscious. Though she doesn’t know if he had a chance of survival, she now understands that it was a decision made for the greater good. When it comes to Ben, on the other hand, her decision to let go of the rope comes from an actual position of power, differentiating itself from what was a decision forced upon her by nature.
With Ben out of the way, Sasha faces a new and greater challenge on her way to escape: the rest of the cliff, which she must climb without assistance. We know this is the first time Sasha has been climbing in months, and the fact that she doesn’t have any rope or equipment only doubles the risk. However, for Sasha, this struggle with nature is effectively a battle inside her mind. Having once given up on the craft due to fear and guilt, she realizes that the only way to move forward, both literally and figuratively, is by championing her fears. It is that motivation which drives her to complete the climb, following which she finds help and soon makes her way back to her car.
Will Sasha Become a Climber Again? Why Does She Throw the Compass Into the Sea?
Though much of the movie’s action takes place in the thickets of Australia, the final moments bring Sasha to the sea, where she lets go of Tommy’s compass as her first step toward moving on. While the compass by itself isn’t a source of her negative memories about Tommy, it’s her inability to forget his death that gives the device its symbolic meaning. Instead of being used for directions and movement, the compass becomes a symbol of staying still and not moving on from a traumatic event. As such, it is fitting that she decides to toss the compass into the ocean, the point where the river she has been kayaking through meets its end, and becomes a part of something much larger. By embracing the transient nature of reality, Sasha finds the courage to take one step forward, at least for now.
Given that Sasha has just proven herself as a climber, it makes sense for her to resume her journey from where it stopped abruptly. The first step in that is most likely scaling the Troll Wall, as the story implies it has been a mission of hers for quite some time. The point at which she always stops is reminiscent of the cliff structure in Australia, which she can climb bare-handed. As such, with that mental block now removed, it should be a matter of time before she returns to Norway and completes the climb, perhaps honoring Tommy in her own way. The last time she attempted the climb, Tommy warned her precisely because she wasn’t ready, but that is no longer the case, and no one understands that better than Sasha herself.
Why Did Ben Become a Killer? Are the Bodies Discovered?
After making it to the top of the cliff and receiving help, Sasha makes her way straight to the police station, revealing Ben’s crimes to the whole world. A news report playing in the background reveals that over 20 missing persons’ cases, which were originally assumed to be nature-related deaths, are now confirmed to be the work of a serial killer. As a chopper is brought to the scene and Ben’s ritual gravesite is identified, Sasha rests knowing that she has saved many potential victims from a worse fate. While we aren’t told whether Ben’s body is ever found by the authorities, it’s safe to assume that Sasha does guide them to it eventually, opening up the question about Ben’s elusive origins.
Though we don’t learn much about Ben’s past based on his own words, there are some hints scattered across the story that help paint a wider picture. To begin with, it’s implied that Ben was raised almost entirely in the woods by his mother to the point that he developed animalistic characteristics and felt more attuned to the forest life rather than the city. What is perhaps the most uncanny thing about him, however, is his teeth, all of which are sharpened to resemble fangs. While we are never told whether that unusual tooth structure is natural or artificial, we know that he covers it with dentures when wandering in public. All of these hints point towards a traumatic childhood, which possibly induced him to fetishize the act of hunting and turned him into a serial killer.
When Sasha tries to empathize with Ben by discussing the latter’s childhood, Ben reveals that his mother was the only person who ever loved him. However, that idea is subverted almost immediately when he reveals that she was also his first kill and that he is now one with her, forever. This warped perspective might be why he obsesses over consuming the people he hunts and kills, as it is possibly his twisted idea of companionship. Sasha’s resilience during the hunting game is what fascinates him most, and he stops short of killing her on one occasion. However, in doing so, he subconsciously relinquishes control of the hunt, which allows Sasha to flip the predator-prey dynamic on its head and emerge victorious.
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