SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
After a childhood in captivity under the care of a man who taught her to fear the outside world, a young woman sees her new freedom shattered by a series of unsettling events.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Wildling Plot Summary and Synopsis
Anna spends her childhood confined in an attic bedroom by the man she believes is her father. He tells her that a child-eating monster called the Wildling roams the woods.
When Anna reaches puberty, “Daddy” begins giving Anna daily injections to prevent her body from maturing, explaining that he is treating her “illness.” Anna suffers terrible side effects from the injections and asks “Daddy” to kill her.
“Daddy” cannot bring himself to shoot her and instead turns the gun on himself.
Anna awakens in a hospital. “Daddy” has survived but is in intensive care. Anna accepts the offer of sheriff Ellen Cooper to temporarily stay at her home.
She befriends Ellen’s brother Ray and attends the local high school. Now free of leuprolide, Anna enters puberty. She develops superhuman hearing and feels drawn to the forest and the Northern Lights.
A DNA test reveals that “Daddy” is not Anna’s biological father. Ray takes Anna to a party where they share a brief romantic moment. Anna’s mouth suddenly begins bleeding. After rushing to the bathroom, she loses some teeth. Anna flees out the window.
Outside, local bully Lawrence tries to rape her and she rips out his throat with her teeth. Confused and frightened, Anna realizes that sharper teeth are pushing out her human teeth and her nails are slowly becoming claw-like.
In the woods, she encounters a one-eyed outdoorsman in a wolf pelt. He tells her that he has not seen one of her kind since the town conducted “the purge” sixteen years ago.
He tells her she will find her mother in a nearby cavern. Anna discovers a fanged skull with a bullet hole in the forehead. Anna suddenly remembers “Daddy” shooting her mother.
“Daddy”, who was participating in the purge, could not bring himself to shoot the human-looking baby Anna and instead he hid her away.
Anna returns to Ellen’s home, where Ellen handcuffs her, apologizing and explaining that the police have discovered Lawrence’s body beside the dress Anna was wearing. Anna is jailed.
That night, “Daddy” visits her and tells her that sparing her life was his greatest mistake, as it meant breaking his oath “to kill all the Wildlings.”
He hands her a syringe with a lethal dose of leuprolide, urging her to take it. Anna refuses. The next morning when Ellen checks on her, Anna locks her in the cell and escapes.
Ray drives Anna north into the forest. Abandoning the car, they go into the woods. That night, they have sex as Ray feels hair growing on Anna’s back.
The next morning, Anna finds claws on her feet with Ray compliments. They are ambushed by “Daddy” and a group of hunters. During their escape, Ray is shot in the arm. Knowing that Ray’s life is in danger, Anna runs the other way, leading the hunting party away.
Three months later, Anna has transformed almost fully into a Wildling. Ellen follows the hunters on one of their expeditions into the forest where Anna kills several of them including Deputy Roger Fowler who held Ellen at gunpoint. Ellen allows Anna to escape after seeing that she is pregnant.
The hunters set the forest on fire, driving Anna to dig underground.
After Anna rips off her clothes where her feet are now stretched out, Anna is tranquilized by “Daddy” who attempts to perform a c-section on her to claim the unborn child. Anna fights off the drugs and kills “Daddy.”
Anna wakes up with the outdoorsman stitching her wounds.
The next morning Ellen and Ray see Anna from afar. They allow her to escape into the wilderness.
Wildling Ending
In the final scene, a fully-transformed Anna has traveled far north as she cradles her newborn child under the Northern Lights. In the distance, she hears the call of another Wildling.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).