Aahana Swrup
‘Black Cab’ is a horror thriller film that takes the viewers on an unnerving ride that unfolds in unexpected ways. Anne and Patrick, an engaged couple with a tumultuous relationship, hail a cab after dinner and find themselves in the company of cheery, if outspoken Ian, the cab driver. However, as the ride continues, the couple soon find themselves strapped in for trouble once Ian reveals himself to be a menacing madman. Worse yet, his decision to kidnap the pair—particularly Anne—seems to stem from a connection to a distant road rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a woman in white.
Consequently, as the nightmarish night devolves, Anne’s life remains in the hands of the maniac behind the wheel and the spirit she can feel beside her in the backseat. The film charts a thrilling mystery from start to finish, submerging the viewers into the terrifying night alongside the protagonists. Thus, intrigue builds by the dozen as the story concludes. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Black Cab Plot Synopsis
Dinner with Patrick and friends remains a tense affair for Anne, who wants to call off the engagement with her fiancé, who continues ignoring her attempts to do so. After Patrick’s wedding announcement, the night ends on a strained note. Outside, Anne hails a cab with the intention of returning to her apartment alone. Nonetheless, despite her and her friend Jessika’s assertion, Patrick forces the woman to share the cab with him. Before the cab drives away, Jessika only has a minute to notice the abnormality of the car’s fogged-up windows and backdoors that don’t open from the inside. Thus, before they know it, Anne and Patrick have unwittingly become trapped inside the cab with their driver, Ian.
Despite being talkative and unappreciative of Patrick’s behavior toward Anne, Ian showcases no immediate red flags. Yet, things tense when he mentions a past run-in with Anne, wherein he drove the woman home from the hospital. Consequently, Anne’s pregnancy—which she hadn’t told Patrick about—comes out in the open. While the couple is still dealing with the aftermath of the revelation, Ian stops the car on an empty road and gets out to take a phone call. When he returns, it’s with a Taser that he uses to render Patrick unconscious. Thus, as Anne gets increasingly frantic and tied up in the backseat, she finally realizes her dangerous demise.
As such, the ride continues—now tinted with Ian’s mysterious but menacing motives. Patrick sways in and out of consciousness but remains equally useless either way. Ian doles out some of his backstory, including an abusive father and a sick kid whom he loves dearly. Meanwhile, Anne grapples with the ghostly figure she glimpses on the street and in the rearview mirrors. Eventually, Ian reveals their destination—Mabel Hill—the most haunted road in England.
As the folklore goes, the road is haunted by the spirit of a mother who died while fleeing from her husband. Although the woman’s kid was found in the forest nearby, they never discovered the mother’s body. On the heels of the story, Anne and Patrick find a window to possibly fight for their freedom when Ian stops at a gas station. Nonetheless, the car’s strategic fogged window prevents anyone from noticing their predicament. Shortly afterward, Anne passes out as a reaction to the drugged water Ian feeds her. By the time she wakes, they’re closer to their destination—and the final leg of the cab driver’s terrifying plan.
Black Cab Ending: Why Does Ian Kidnap Anne and Patrick?
From Ian’s introduction into the story, his motives remain the most intriguing part of his character—and thereby the narrative. Initially, it’s easy to assume he’s an unhinged serial killer who has just picked up his latest victims. Nevertheless, his reluctance to directly harm Anne—a restraint he doesn’t exercise with Patrick—brings the assumption under questioning. Fortunately, his talkative nature ensures the driver reveals his backstory before delivering his passengers to their demise. Predictably, it seems to be tied to the supernatural interference Anne has been spotting this entire time.
As it turns out, Ian’s tale about the ghost of Mabel Hill isn’t as confined to a folktale as one would want to assume. The same is evident from the glimpses Anne consistently has of the woman in white within and around the cab. Naturally, there’s a reason the ghost is haunting Ian’s car. A while back, Ian drove down Mabel Hill after a fight with his wife, which rendered him in a sour mood. During this time, he spotted Mabel Hill’s ghost by the roadside, who had taken up residence in his cab. The woman could make out the thoughts in Ian’s head and took advantage of them. Afterward, the interaction left Ian so spooked he returned home late after a few rounds at the pub.
Nevertheless, at home, a horrifying sight awaited Ian in his son’s bedroom. The Mabel Hill ghost followed Ian back to his house and now hovered over his son’s crib. The ghost story around the woman states that she died in a car crash that her kid managed to survive. Consequently, now the woman wanders the roadside and the forest alone, looking for another child to subdue the gaping absence of her own kid. Thus, after latching herself onto Ian and his cab, the ghost found her perfect next prey.
Nonetheless, Ian came up with a solution. Instead of his own kid, Ian offered to bring another child to her. A few days later, as Anne entered his cab from the hospital, Ian found his victim. Since the driver already knew Anne’s address, he likely staked out her apartment to find a way to get her into his cab again. Eventually, the dinner presented the ideal opportunity, compelling Ian to kidnap Anne—with Patrick as nothing but collateral damage.
Is Anne Pregnant? What Happens to Her Baby?
Even though Anne’s pregnancy plays a central role in the eventual reveal of Ian’s motives, the film references it early in the narrative. Initially, after Jessika learns that Anne hasn’t broken off her engagement with Patrick, she asks if it’s because she’s pregnant. Anne’s answer remains a simple no. Yet, she disproves this by corroborating Ian’s story about her visit to the hospital. Perhaps for the same reason, she is reluctant to end her relationship with Patrick and continues to care about the latter’s safety despite his infidelity and adverse reaction to the life-threatening situation.
The cab ride comes to an end—at the parking lot of an abandoned hotel, which is currently serving as Ian’s lair. At the destination, he employs Anne’s help to carry Patrick inside under the promise of his safety. Afterward, he leaves the couple alone in his lair to take a call, offering Anne the opportunity to make a run for it with his keys. Nonetheless, before she can unlock the fence outside to get her and Patrick to Ian’s car, the man catches up to them. Following a short tussle with Patrick, the driver goes back on his word and slits the other man’s throat open. Meanwhile, all Anne can do is run away in horror to try and find another way out.
After a few close calls with Ian—and surprisingly enough, the ghost—Anne manages to make it to his cab, even getting as far as to start the engine up. Yet, before she can drive away, Ian drags her out of the car window, asserting himself back behind the wheel. Thus, Anne loses out on her last chance of escape and finds herself being driven away to the same Mabel Hill road where Ian first encountered the ghost. However, as the time comes to make the deal, the woman reveals a startling secret to Ian. Anne isn’t actually pregnant.
While it is true that Anne was pregnant when she visited the hospital, she lost the baby shortly afterward. As such, she is truthful at the beginning of the story when she tells Jessika that she has no baby. Nonetheless, since then, she had been lying about the pregnancy, including in the aftermath of her violent altercation with Ian. As such, despite his best, most immoral efforts, Ian fails to bring a child to the Mabel Hill ghost.
Why Did Anne Lie About The Baby? Does She Die?
As the revelation of Anne’s non-existent pregnancy arrives, viewers—and Ian—alike are left pondering her motivation for keeping up the lie this entire time. On a surface level, the fact remains that the woman is still making peace with her failed pregnancy and the baby that she lost. However, she has a more self-serving reason for her lies as well. Initially, it’s unclear why Ian is carrying out the kidnapping. Nonetheless, once his motives begin to clear up, Anne realizes that the only thing keeping her alive is the fact that Ian thinks she’s pregnant. If Ian knew Anne wasn’t carrying a child, his efforts to kidnap her would have been for nothing. The same would make her disposable in the driver’s eyes.
Anne can tell Ian has enough control over the situation to make it impossible for her to escape. Therefore, she continues lying about her pregnancy to buy herself some time and ensure the man doesn’t outright kill her to cover his tracks. However, Anne has a peculiar epiphany after the emotional reveal is forced out of her in the middle of the road in the ghost’s presence. Throughout the film, Anne remembers her previous cab ride with Ian in hazy detail. Something about her time in the cab stood out to her. After she learns about the ghost and her mythology, things begin to slot into place.
During Anne’s initial cab ride with Ian, the ghost also actively haunts the cab in the backseat. Therefore, she was already in contact with Anne and the child inside her womb. Consequently, the ghost already took the woman’s child away before it could even be born. For the same reason, Anne lost her child while Ian remained oblivious to the entire ordeal. As the realization strikes Anne, it sends her into an emotionally charged frenzy wherein she tries to attack the ghost. Once that fails, she runs into the forest. Unwittingly, she becomes the perfect mirror image of the woman in the white, terrorizing the forest in search of something that was lost.
Meanwhile, Ian tries to escape the situation once he realizes he has no child to trade for his own. However, somehow, he arrives back to where he left his car, having walked on a non-existent circular path. Nonetheless, he knows better than to question things. As such, he gets back into his cab to drive away from the haunted roadside. Yet, in his distracted condition, he ends up hitting Anne as the crazed woman jumps in front of his car. Even so, once he gets out to take a look, Anne’s body isn’t anywhere near his car.
Still not asking any questions, Ian decides to drive away. Yet, unbeknownst to the man, he has just created another ghost of the Mabel Hill—Anne—who now haunts the back of his cab. The ending implies that the ghost of Mabel Hill, the woman in the white, is a regenerative position that one woman inherits after another. Perhaps for the same reason, Anne has been haunted by visions of the woman from the beginning. Ultimately, Anne dies and becomes another ghost in the backseat of Ian’s cab.
What Happened to Ian’s Son?
Even though Ian’s son is never quiet on screen, his predicament remains equally as intriguing as the other characters. Through Ian’s backstory, it’s revealed that his son was actually never biologically related to him. Ian discovered the same after an argument with his wife, wherein she threatened to divorce him and take their son away from him. Despite their lack of biological connection, Ian dearly loved his son. Since he never had a good father, he wanted to be the best one for his own kid and intended to perform his duties regardless of a paternity test.
For the same reason, Ian’s wife’s threat hit him where it hurt. This pushed him into a dark headspace where he considered taking his wife, Elaine, and their son’s lives to punish the woman. The thought was fleeting but jarring, compelling Ian to take a long drive out, which brought him to Mabel Hill. It was then that the ghost found him and threatened to make his thoughts come true by killing his son. Consequently, the driver blamed himself all this time for putting his son in danger. Although it’s unclear exactly how the ghost terrorizes the kid, it’s possible she haunts him, similar to how she haunts Ian and his cab.
This would also explain the phone calls Ian consistently receives from Elaine, which could be possible updates about their son. In the end, as Ian is driving away, he gets a similar call—without a caller ID but listed under his son’s photograph. The man seems relieved, which suggests the ghost has given up her hold on the boy. Nevertheless, considering the ominous ending shot of Anne hovering over Ian’s shoulder as a ghost, it’s possible the driver and his family aren’t entirely out of the woods yet. It’s possible Anne may use Ian as a tool to trap more victims, similar to how her predecessor operated. Ultimately, the film ends on an ambiguous note, leaving the audience wondering about the characters’ final demise.
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