The Room (2019)

The Room (2019) – Full Plot, Cast & Ending Explained

Cast & characters

‘The Room’ is a Belgian thriller movie, released in 2019. It is produced and directed by Christian Volckman and stars Olga Kurylenko as the character Kate, Kevin Janssens playing Matt, Francis Chapman playing Shane, Joshua Wilson playing the kid Shane, John Flanders as John Doe, along with a few more actors.

Introduction of the movie

At the beginning of the movie, we are shown a young couple who reach a house away from the town, in their car with their belongings. They have recently bought this property, which is known as Springwell House, and have come to move into the house.

The girl talks to her mom on her phone, saying that the house is not that old and just needs some repairs. They are happy that they finally have a new home for themselves and watch their home from the outside with pride. The man calls her Jumbak lovingly as her pet name and tells her that everything will be alright.

The name of the man is Matt, and his wife is Kate, and both of them love each other. They start to unpack their belongings while having fun with each other. There is a lot of old stuff in the house, which they throw outside to make way for their own luggage.

The man, while busy arranging his things in the room, gets to know that her wife is also helping him with this heavy job. He asks her not to do it, but she says that she also has to help him and that he should concentrate on his drawings, as it is revealed here that Matt is a painter. This upsets Matt as he thinks she is nagging him, but she convinces him that she loves the fact that she has loved an artist.

Some strange things are being found in the new house

The arranging of things goes on, while Matt discovers a strange iron piece, which he throws away from the window, and Kate finds a dead bird in the old rubble. She buries the bird in the garden area and finds some strange sensation in the surroundings outside.

Again, Matt discovers a hole in the wall, which has been covered by sheets. He removes the sheets to get a clear vision of the wall. On removing the entire sheets, Matt finds that there is actually a door in the wall, which has a strange keyhole opening.

Matt gets reminded of that iron piece, which he just threw outside, and which is possibly the key to this door. He brings the key from the pile of rubble and opens the door with the key. He also calls Kate to see what lies there after opening the door of the room.

When they start to enter the room, suddenly the lights start to flicker outside in the lampshades. Matt goes out to call the electrician, and Kate enters the room but finds nothing.

The next morning, Kate encourages Matt to restart his passion for drawing, as he is an artist, and then discusses her own work as a translator with her boss. Her boss wants her to rejoin in two weeks’ time, but she is reluctant. While she is discussing with her boss, Matt is about to re-enter the room, but Kate informs him about the arrival of the electrician.

The electrician reveals something chilling

The electrician goes into the basement to check for the faults, but is not able to rectify the fault, as the wiring is very complex and old. The electrician leaves but tells Matt that he is surprised that this house has been bought by Matt, as the previous owners were killed here some years ago.

Matt tries to search for the murders on the net and finds that there was a couple named Paul and Madeline Schiffer, who were brutally murdered there by someone in the year 1975.

Further, he gets to know that the killer was a person known as John Doe, who is presently serving his sentence in a mental health facility. He draws a sketch of John Doe’s picture, which he sees on the net, and keeps the sketch to himself.

Matt takes his wine bottle and the lampshade into the room, which they discovered recently. When Matt finds that his wine bottle is empty, he wishes that he had one more bottle to drink. Suddenly, the light starts to flicker, and after it settles down, he is astonished to find a full wine bottle in front of him, which he drinks.

The next morning, things change dramatically

The next morning, Kate finds the lights continuously flickering, while she finds Matt in the Room with a lot of stuff, like priceless paintings from renowned artists, besides furniture and clothing. On seeing her, Matt asks Kate to wish for something that she needs urgently.

Kate refuses initially, but at Matt’s insistence, she tells him that she needs $1000. In a few minutes, Matt finds $1000 in the room and gives it to Kate, who is surprised to find the money. When she asks Matt about this, Matt tells her that he got it from the room only.

After that, Matt asks her to make a wish again, but for a bigger amount, to which she demands $ 1 million, which is again granted, and the exact amount of cash is in front of them.

Then they start to demand many more things through wishes, which the room fulfils for them. They ask for clothes, money, champagne, paintings, and much more, and the room provides them immediately.

They get mad after seeing that their every wish is getting fulfilled and start to dance the whole night. They realize that the room has some unexplained powers associated with it, and the room can provide everything that one asks for inside it. They start to demand just anything from the room after that and see it get fulfilled at once.

One day, Matt demands a pram from the room, fitted with toys, and suggests to Kate that they should try for a baby again. Kate gets sad but is sceptical too, as she has already had two miscarriages before this.

Kate says that she does not want to go through the pain of losing the baby again. Matt tells her that neither of them has anything wrong with them, and therefore, they should try again this time. Not getting any substantial reply from Kate, Matt goes away.

The Room creates a baby for the couple

One day, when Matt returns home, he is surprised to find that Kate is playing with a baby. On asked, Kate tells Matt that she got the baby from the Room. Matt gets furious and tells her that this is wrong and that they can’t raise a child like that.

Matt insists she return the baby to the room by asking her to take the baby back. But she can’t do it even after trying hard, and hence she keeps the baby.

Even though not born to her, the baby can drink milk from her, which is surprising for both. One day, Matt decides to go to the mental facility to meet John Doe, to ask about the room and its mystery.

He comes to know from the caretaker that no one has met him for the last 45 years. Matt poses as a reporter, gains entry into the facility, and meets John. 

When John meets him, Mat asks him why he killed that couple, to which John tells him that he had no other choice. John does not tell him anything more and advises him to forget about the room. John also warns Matt to leave the house as soon as he can.

John informs Matt that he knows they are having a lot of fun in the house due to the room, but it will prove very dangerous for them. John advises him not to be greedy and leave the house immediately and save themselves.

On returning, Matt stops to refuel his car, and when he tries to take out the money for payment, he finds that the money that he got from the room has turned into ash in his pocket.

Matt learns something astonishing about the ‘Room’s secret

When Matt returns home, he throws some money outside the window to see what happens. He witnesses that all the money is turning into ash even in mid-air, as soon as the currency notes leave the window.

He further takes out a painting and keeps some portion of it inside, and the rest outside the main entrance. To his surprise, he finds that the outside portion is decaying and turning into ash, while the portion that is inside is intact.

Matt now understands that anything that the room provides can be sustained within the house only, and the moment that thing is taken outside, it perishes. He tries to dig through the walls and the floor of the room to find any information about the functioning of the room. He finds nothing more than a heavy mesh of wires, intertwined everywhere below the room and behind its walls.

One day, Kate takes the child out to breathe fresh air. Matty tries to stop her, but Kate does not listen. When she goes outside, the baby starts to grow fast, and the aging process takes place rapidly in the baby.

Hearing the cries of both the baby and Kate, Matt comes out and takes the baby inside, who has changed into a grown-up child in a few moments outside.

Kate asks Matt about all this, to which Matt reveals that the room can create things, but on the condition that one does not take the stuff outside that it produces; otherwise, the ageing process starts very fast, and the stuff shall perish in a few moments only.

Now Kate starts to take care of this grown-up child and behaves normally with him. But she never allows him to go outside, as she does not want to lose him. The child is named Shane, and he lives in the confines of the house only, which starts to make him angry, since her mother does not allow him to go outside.

Matt orders a gun online, keeps that with him, and practices some shots in the open on a regular basis. Here, one day, when Kate is playing piano, Shane finds the opportunity and tries to go outside the house. But Kate hears the sound of the door and grabs him inside just when Shane is about to go out.

After that, Kate covers all the windows of the house with wooden logs from outside, so that Shane does not attempt to escape and hurt himself. But the anger of the child keeps growing, and at the dinner table, too, he chews ice even when being told not to do so by Kate.

Matt confronts Kate about her obsession with the child

One day, Matt finds Shane in his room and gets angry with him. Accidentally, Shane drops a snow globe from his hand and breaks it. Matt prohibits Shane from coming to his room, and when Kate asks him why he is not allowing Shane to come to his room, Matt replies that he is not a child but a figment only.

At night, Shane happens to see the sketch of the basement wiring on the wall, and while wandering in the house, he goes to the basement. There, he is able to reach the center of the basement, which is the main control of the room. Shane probably gets to know about the secret of the room, and how it can manifest anything that is asked of it.

The next morning, Matt finds the same Snow globe intact in front of him, which Shane had broken accidentally. He understands that Shane has been to the room. Matt takes Kate with him toward the room and finds that Shane is playing with snow in the garden outside the room.

Shane starts to use the Room’s powers

Shane has actually transformed the room into a garden, with the help of the room itself. Even though Kate is happy, Matt drags Shane inside and warns him not to come to the room again. He locks the room with the help of keys and puts them inside his drawer. Kate confronts Matt and scolds him for being so harsh to Shane.

Matt tells her that Shane can dream things now, which is very disturbing. Matt explains that Shane can imagine or ask just any damn thing from the room, like a dragon or something like that, and they can end up in danger any day due to this.

Shane hears their argument outside their room, but just then their telephone rings. Shane picks up the phone silently while John Doe is on the other side. Matt snatches the phone from Shane and starts to talk to John.

Matt asks John about the secret of the room, and how to stop the ageing process that happens outside, to things that it gives inside the room.

John tells Matt the reason for killing his parents

Meanwhile, Kate also starts to hear their conversation, from another phone in another room. John tells Matt that for the entity to survive outside the house, the creator must die. He reveals to Matt that he killed his parents for the same reason.

John adds that his parents knew that for John to survive outside the room, they had to die. So his foster mother, Madeline, first killed her husband and then forced John to kill her, too. She did so because she wanted her child, John, to survive outside the premises of the house, which she got from the same room.

Kate hears all this and leaves the house in their car to finish herself. Here, Shane asks Matt about his mother, but Matt angrily replies to him that Kate is not her mother. Matt also tells Shane that he is not real, but only an imagination.

Matt reveals to Shane that he will start to age fast if he goes out and will soon perish. When Shane doesn’t believe him, Matt drags him towards the door and asks Shane to see for himself by going out. Shane gets scared by this and runs inside the house.

Matt realizes his mistake of scolding Shane like that and apologizes to Shane for his behavior. Kate, who is not able to kill herself, returns home and is pleasantly surprised to find Shane sleeping peacefully with Matt.

Matt is relieved to see Kate back, and Kate, too, wants to forget the words of John, after which they get intimate. Shane watches them from outside through the door. He enters their room and takes the keys from Matt’s pants pocket.

Shane grows older than before

When in the morning, Matt and Kate rush towards the door to find Shane, they are surprised to find a big boy in the room. Shane has actually been outside the house for a brief period, to get bigger, since he knew that he could age faster outside.

He points Matt’s gun toward them and wants to hurt them because he thinks that Kate lied to him about them always being together. Kate pacifies him and assures him that everything will be alright, and they shall indeed be all together.

While Shane gets distracted by all this, Matt gets a chance to pounce on Shane to snatch the gun from his hand. But in this scuffle, Kate gets hit on the head and loses her consciousness in the accidental hit on her head.

In the morning, Kate is seen with Matt, who tells her that Shane has been killed during the commotion, while they were fighting for the gun. Matt tells Kate that he took Shane’s body outside, and thus, he has perished. Kate is shocked to know this, while Matt tries to comfort her.

In the morning, Matt, not finding Kate in the house, starts to rush towards the room. On searching for the keys in the drawer, he doesn’t find them there and thus starts to break the wall of the Room to enter it.

Here, in another scene, Matt is seen having food with Kate in front of him, and behaving strangely as a child does. Again, Matt is seen working his way through the heavy mesh of wires, and when he gets out of the network of wires, he finds himself in the same forest area that Shane has envisaged.

Shane has cloned himself with Matt’s face

Here, Matt, who is having his food in front of Kate, starts to chew some ice blocks just like little Shane did, which makes Kate scared and suspicious. It is actually Shane only who has cloned himself with the help of the room.

He has impersonated himself like Matt to confuse Kate and starts to touch Kate inappropriately. He even calls her mom, which confirms to Kate that this is Shane, and she runs away from there.

Here, the real Matt, who was roaming in the forest, finds another replica of their house on the other side of the forest. Matt is actually in the same room, which has been manifested as per the wishes of Shane.

He runs towards this house to find Kate, although he is actually in the Room only. Here, Shane, who is disguised as Matt, pounces on Kate and tries to abuse her.

Matt reaches the glass door of the house and breaks it. Shane hears the noise and rushes outside. While both Matt and Shane are looking for each other, Kate, finding an opportunity, also rushes outside. She finds Matt there and is about to go to him, but then she finds another Matt behind her.

Both try to convince her that they are the real ones. But the real Matt calls her Jumbak, which Matt used to call her lovingly. She recognizes Shane, and when Shane tries to drag her, she pushes Shane onto the stairs, and both Matt and Kate run away from there.

But they can’t figure out the real exit from there towards the outside, since they are in the Room only, which has been turned into a maze by Shane, who turns to his original grown-up boy form. Since Matt knows by now that they are roaming in the magic room only, he devises a trick to get away from there.

Shane even clones both Matt and Kate

He produces clones of both Kate and himself, which confuses Shane, who stabs the cloned Matt. Shane comes to know that they are both clones only, and the real ones are in the forest area, whereas everything is, in fact, happening in the room only.

Shane rushes to the forest area, which is the creation of his mind only within the room, and while seeing them rushing back towards the original house, he too runs after them and enters the house, which is the Room only.

Matt and Kate enter the room from the main door of the forest, and Shane also follows them to the house. Now, Matt, after coming out of the room, runs towards the actual entrance of the house, and Shaun follows them there. Shane runs towards Matt to kill him, but Matt opens the main door of the house and drags Shaun outside along with him.

Finally, the room’s powers start to affect Shane

Now, since Shane is outside the real house, the rule of the room that the entity created from the room shall start to age and perish applies to Shane. He tries to come inside, but Kate shuts the door. The ageing process rapidly happens to Shane, and in a few moments, he turns into an old man and is killed while his body decays and turns into ash.

In the ending scene, Matt and Kate are in a motel, where Matt brings her coffee and asks her to open the door. But Kate is disturbed by a pregnancy test, which is shown to us as positive, and the movie ends there.

Some of the Frequently Asked Questions from the movie