Tamal Kundu
‘Killer Book Club’ or ‘El club de los lectores criminales’ is a Spanish horror thriller film available on Netflix. Directed by Carlos Alonso Ojea (‘El Matador’), it is based on the 2018 Spanish fiction novel by Carlos García Miranda, who also wrote the script. The story revolves around a group of friends who are part of the same book club. After their writing professor, Cruzado, sexually assaults Ángela and goes unreported because of his status at the university, Ángela and her friends decide to get revenge on him. When their plan leads to a fatal accident, the friends agree to keep it a secret.
However, a killer starts murdering them one by one while wearing the very clown costume they used to scare Cruzado and publishing the story of their deaths online. Here is everything you might want to know about the ending of ‘Killer Book Club.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.
Killer Book Club Plot Synopsis
The film begins six years before the setting of the main narrative. A young woman named Alicia douses an older woman, who we later learn is Alicia’s mother, in gasoline. Alicia grabs a burning copy of ‘Don Quijote’ and throws it toward the begging woman. The pages spread over the floor immediately catch fire before the flames cover the mother. As her dying scream can be heard in the background, a chat flashes on the screen stating, “She will be the one to die,” with a hammer emoji beside the message. The second line contains a series of love emojis.
The narrative then shifts to the present, where Ángela and her friends — Sebas, Koldo, Eva, Sara, and Rai — are students of Cruzado’s writing class at the MCSU. Ángela’s boyfriend, Nando, a bartender at the local bar, joins her as she arrives at the university. They are joined by Virginia, a girl who appears to be at least a year younger than the rest of the group. They are members of the university’s book club. Almost all of them are aspiring authors, though Nando, who isn’t even a student at the university, is there so he and Ángela can spend more time together. They are currently reading a book called ‘Killer Clowns’ by Miranda Duncan. Apparently, several members of this horror-loving group are fascinated with clowns. Virginia posts the video of a killer clown on the group chat, and the friends talk about coulrophobia, the irrational fear of clowns.
There seems to be an underlying tension between Nando and Sebas, as the latter is apparently in love with Ángela. Nando and the others know this to be true, though Ángela seems dismissive, likely because she doesn’t want to deal with the notion that her best friend is in love with her when she is in a relationship with someone else. Afterward, she berates Nando for his aggressive behavior toward Sebas, even though the heated exchange started after Sebas insinuated that Nando is unimaginative.
After the club meeting, most members of the group attend Cruzado’s class. Among them, only Ángela is told to remain behind after class. Cruzado takes Ángela to his office and states that he wants to discuss the email she sent him. Ángela thinks he is speaking about the email about her novel she never sent, but he apparently means something else. Cruzado corners and tries to kiss her, prompting her to kick him below the belt and force him to open the door.
Ángela doesn’t report Cruzado because he threatened her with dire consequences and the fact that he is a professor with considerable influence at the university. Eventually, her friends come up with the plan of scaring the living daylight out of Cruzado. All of them put on clown costumes in order to terrorize the man in the evening when the university is effectively empty. However, as the terrified Cruzado tries to get away from the costumed students, he bumps into Ángela, falls over the railing, and is impaled on the jousting lance of the Don Quijote statue in the courtyard of the university. Although Ángela immediately wants to go to the police and accept the part she played in the man’s death, her friends, including Nano, vehemently disagree with the plan, as they have no desire to throw away their future. So, all of them swear that they will keep what happened this evening a secret, letting the authorities presume that Cruzado died of suicide or accident.
Shortly after, the club members find that there is a new addition to the group chat: The MadClown. They have posted the link to the first chapter of their story, which they have uploaded to the writing site Escrileo. The first chapter documents what happened to Cruzado in minute detail before revealing that one member of the book club will be killed in each of the coming chapters. As a film, ‘Killer Book Club’ pays homage to the 1990s slasher films like ‘Scream’ and ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer.’ It embraces certain meta characteristics as it refers to each of the characters by the archetype they are supposed to represent. Ángela is the heroine, Rai the Wild Man, Nando the Emo, Sara the Babe, Virginia the Brat, Koldo the Influencer, Eva the Librarian, and Sebas the Simp.
Killer Book Club Ending: Who is the Killer Clown?
Virginia or the Brat, as the killer refers to her, seemingly becomes their first victim. The killer posts chapter 2 of his story, apparently after killing her, but the others fail to locate her body. Predictably, Ángela and the rest start to suspect each other. They conclude that no one else was at the university campus the night Cruzado died, so it has to be one of them.
As Nando is not entirely a part of the group, the suspicion inevitably falls on her. Sebas is also suspected of being the killer because of his interest in Ángela. The second person in the group to be killed is Rai. Self-assured to the point of arrogance, Rai confronts the clown when they come for him. He seems to subdue the person and even unmask them but never sees the attack coming as the clown cuts his belly open with the claw side of their hammer.
The remaining members of the group can’t find Rai’s body either. They arrive at the spot mentioned in the chapter and find “to be continued” written on the floor of an abandoned swimming pool. The same phrase was written on the walls of the old, abandoned building where Virginia’s body was supposed to be. Nando is attacked but somehow survives. Koldo, believing that the entire thing is an elaborate prank, hosts a fair where people show up wearing the same clown costume as the killer. Both Sara and Koldo are killed during that event. Ángela briefly suspects Eva after seeing the killer’s hammer in her hand, but the latter is also killed.
Ultimately, it is revealed that Sebas and Virginia are the killers dressed as clowns. Virginia is Alicia, and Sebas is her boyfriend with whom she was interacting in the chat mentioned above. Alicia also met Ángela on the same website, and the two girls grew quite close, prompting Alicia to confide in Ángela about the horrible abuse she was suffering at the hands of her book-obsessed mother. Ángela took that, changed the names, and wrote a novel. After its publication, it became quite popular. Ángela has thought all this time her novel made Alicia murder her mother and commit suicide. As it turns out, Alicia did kill her mother, but she didn’t die by suicide.
Alicia and Sebas set up an elaborate plan to frame Ángela for the murders of her friends and write a story on that. They are the ones who sent Cruzado the email from Ángela’s account, claiming that she was attracted to him. The idea is that Sebas will publish it after Ángela’s death, and he and Alicia will become rich after the novel becomes a bestseller. Sebas is ultimately killed after Nando, who is revealed to be alive, pushes him off from the same spot where Cruzado fell, and Sebas also dies after being impaled on Don Quijote’s lance. Alicia seemingly dies in the boiler room of the university after Ángela uses electricity to set her on fire.
Is Alicia Dead? Does Ángela Die?
The epilogue of the film is set a year after the main narrative. Nando and Ángela are both alive and together, and the former now attends the university. They take a writing class where the professor talks about sequels. After leaving the class, Ángela suddenly discovers someone is standing in front of her in a clown costume. They remove the mask, and it’s Alicia with half of her face burned. Ángela looks around, and there is no one else there but the two of them. The film ends just as Alicia attacks Ángela.
Throughout the film, Ángela has visions of the clown attacks; this one is likely one of them. Otherwise, the university would not have become suddenly empty. Moreover, it’s a norm in horror/thriller films to end with the implication that the antagonist is still active, even if they aren’t. So, it is likely that Alicia is dead and Ángela is alive.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Killer Book Club Based on a True Story?
