Aahana Swrup
‘Brooklyn 45’ is a horror mystery film directed by Ted Geoghegan that blends supernatural elements with a historical setting. Featuring Anne Ramsay, Jeremy Holm, and Ron E. Rains, among others, this film revolves around a group of friends from the military following the end of the Second World War. After convincing his friends to join him in a seance, recent widower Clive leads the group and opens the door to the afterlife. As a result, past horrors are unveiled, trapping Marla, Archie, Paul, and Bob inside Clive’s parlor. If you’re curious to see how this mystical experience unfolds for the gang and where it leads them in the end, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Brooklyn 45.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
Brooklyn 45 Plot Synopsis
On December 27th, 1945, Marla Sheridan, a former military interrogator, arrives in Brooklyn, New York, with her civilian husband for a reunion with her long-time friends. At Clive Hockstatter’s apartment, the couple meets their host, alongside Paul DiFranco and Archibald Stanton. The group reminisces about their past, and Marla’s friends take seemingly friendly jabs at Bob until the conversation inevitably drifts toward Susan, Clive’s dead wife.
Clive reveals to the group that since Susan’s death, he has been reading psychology books that led him down a metaphysics rabbit hole. Talking of mediums and spirit guides, Clive asks his friends to humor him and partake in a seance. To persuade his skeptical friends, Clive tells them about his bad experience at Susan’s church, where the Reverand condemned Susan’s soul to hell since she committed suicide.
Before her death, Susan had been paranoid about their German neighbors being Nazi spies. After everyone refused to believe her, Susan took her life on Thanksgiving morning. Clive expresses guilt over not listening to his wife, desperate to find any trace of Susan and an afterlife. Eventually, Marla agrees to indulge Clive’s wish, and the others follow, forming a circle around a table with joined hands. Leading the seance, Clive calls out for nearby spirits, urging them to break through to their world and make their presence known.
Nothing happens for a while, but soon, a locked closet door starts rattling erratically, suggesting something on the other side. Clive insists no one break the circle for fear of leaving the door to the supernatural world open. As the banging continues, Clive throws up a viscous white sludge from which Susan’s ghostly hand protrudes. The group can hear Susan’s voice from the sludge, and in his ecstasy, Clive accidentally breaks the seance circle. As a result, all supernatural activity in the parlor shut down completely.
As the friends come to terms with the bizarre happening, Clive reminds Paul of the favor he needs Paul to do for himself and Susan. Afterward, Clive swiftly pulls out a gun, training it inside his mouth, and pulls the trigger. Following Clive’s suicide, Paul searches for the parlor door key on Clive’s body. However, a woman breaks free from inside the locked closet, gagged and bound, before anyone can leave. Once Paul, a former army Major, realizes the woman is a German, he withholds the room key from the rest of the group. Paul suspects the woman, Hildegard Baumann, of being a Nazi spy, as Susan believed. As such, he pulls a gun on Hildegard, demanding answers.
Brooklyn 45 Ending: Is Hildegard a Nazi Spy?
After Paul holds Hildegard at gunpoint, he interrogates her, assuming she’s a Nazi due to her heavy accent. Hildegard tells the group she moved from Germany to New York in 1931. Now she lives down the street with her family and works at her father-in-law’s grocery store. After the war ended, Susan got paranoid about Hildegard being a spy and started harassing Hilde’s family, including her young girls. The night before, Clive invited Hilde for a drink but used the opportunity to drug and kidnap her.
Paul insists Clive and Susan must have had a reason to believe Hilde was a spy. Moreover, Paul arrives at Clive’s house hours before everyone else. Due to the same, Paul believes Clive invited him early so that he would discover Hilde and kill her. Since Clive himself had a weak stomach, he couldn’t kill the woman himself. Nevertheless, Hilde insists The Hockstatters only suspected her of being a spy because they couldn’t accept that the war was over.
Although Marla believes Hilde is innocent, Archie shares Paul’s suspicions. However, Hilde talks about her family and their lives in an effort to humanize herself to the group. Once Archie becomes reluctant to kill Hilde, Paul picks a fight with Archie unearthing his past. Eventually, Marla interferes, agreeing to step back in her old “Marla The Merciless” shoes. She interrogates Hilde by digging her hairpin into Hilde’s fingernail bed and asking her questions about her life and relation to the Nazi Party.
Hilde suffers through the interrogation, answering Marla’s questions without escaping her hold. As such, Marla concludes Hilde is not a Nazi spy. After the war ended, Susan continued to carry her hatred for Germans and targeted Hilde and her family due to their otherness. However, she never stops to think there’s no need for a German spy any longer since there’s no Nazi party to report back to.
Susan’s hatred for the Germans blinded her senses, and after she died, the same thing happened to a grieving Clive. Likewise, after Clive, Paul’s best friend, dies, Paul refuses to believe Clive’s last actions were an act of xenophobia. Therefore, he refuses to believe Marla even after her interrogation, but the group forces him to unlock the parlor door. However, once he inserts the key into the lock, it disintegrates into the door, locking the group inside.
Do Marla And Her Friends Escape From The Parlor?
When the key doesn’t work, the group attempts to escape from the room by breaking the door and the windows. Still, they ultimately fail. Soon, Clive’s dead body reanimates, parroting his desire for someone to kill Hilde, calling her a Nazi. Paul realizes the only way out of this hellish room is to kill Hilde, but Archie prevents Clive from killing Hilde. Due to the supernatural nature of the events, Marla recalls Clive’s words about leaving “the door to the other side” open. As such, Marla guides the group through another seance, trying to close the door.
The group, excluding Hilde, forms a circle around the table again and calls for the spirits. As the supernatural surrounds the parlor again, Susan’s incorporeal ghost appears, starting to crawl toward Hilde. Susan’s spirit blames Hilde for poisoning the town with her presence and claims to have died at the hands of Hilde. Even though Hilde vehemently declines the claims, Archie questions her sincerity.
Frustrated and tired, Archie calls out for the spirits to let him out of the room. The door unlocks, but on the other side lies hell’s landscapes. As a result, Paul tries to choke Hilde to death. He’s desperate to win his freedom and carries blind hatred for Hilde, who poses as an easy target for him. Archie tries to stop Paul and inadvertently gives Bob an opening to steal the gun from his pocket.
Bob holds Paul at gunpoint to prevent him from killing Hilde. Meanwhile, Clive’s dead body starts banging his head onto the table, smashing it to a pulp. Paul tries to take the gun from Bob, leading to Bob shooting Paul in the head. However, when Hilde tries to approach Bob to thank him, he kills her as well in order to put an end to the nightmarish night. Following Hilde’s death, the spirits leave the parlor, with Bob, Marla, and Archie free to leave.
Is Archie a War Criminal?
Throughout the film, Archie’s primary storyline revolves around his actions during the war. In the beginning, when Bob meets Archie, he is reluctant to spend time with him since Archie is under investigation for alleged war crimes. Nevertheless, Marla assures Bob of Archie’s innocence, with the rest of the group backing the same sentiment. However, once things heat up between Paul and Archie after Clive’s death, Clive taunts Archie by calling him a “Baby Butcher.”
Afterward, Archie and Paul delve into the horrifying story of Archie blowing up a room full of young German kids during the war. On the battlefield, German shooters surrounded Archie and his team. To clear the path and take the roof, Archie threw a bomb into a room on Clive’s order. However, the room was a registered Children’s Shelter. As such, Clive made up a story about a trigger-happy soldier who died on the battlefield to divert blame from Archie.
Nevertheless, eventually, the bureau finds out about Archie’s involvement in the bombing through other soldiers from Clive’s team, which leads to the national investigation. After the group finds out about the same, Marla and Bob are horrified at Archie’s actions. However, Hilde tries to sympathize with Archie since he only followed orders during a hellish war. Due to the same, Archie stands up for Hilde, protecting her. In the end, when Marla, Bob, and Archie escape from Clive’s apartment, Archie shares his decision to turn himself in to the authorities and serve time for his war crimes.
Read More: Is Brooklyn 45 Based on a True Story?
