While fans of the horror movie genre enjoy seeing things that are shocking, The Swarm takes creepy-crawly stories to a whole new level. The French-language film (original title La Nuée) debuted on Netflix on Aug. 6, and the 101-minute tale will have you feeling uneasy — and, perhaps, a little itchy.
The plot centers around Virginie Hébrard (Suliane Brahim), a single mother of two kids who supports her family by running a locust farm. While she initially uses the insects as high-protein food, after an accident, she learns that they are thirsty for human blood.
The revelation proves to be a dangerous-yet-potentially-lucrative one, as the blood helps the locusts to grow and to reproduce faster. Virginie orders containers of blood, but the bugs can’t tell the distinction between what is bought, and what is coming from an actual, living human.
The ending of The Swarm will keep viewers thinking long after the screen fades to black. Keep reading to find out what happens.
‘The Swarm’ ending explained — does Virginie survive?
While Virginie is briefly away from the farm, she leaves her kids, Laura (Marie Narbonne) and Gaston (Raphael Romand), in charge of the locusts. Laura gets frustrated with the amount of noise that the locusts are making, and she cuts slits in the greenhouse and riles the bugs up in a fit of anger.
Many of the locusts then escape one of the greenhouses, and Virginie is horrified when she returns and finds out.
Later on in the film, Laura finds out that the locusts have been feeding on blood. She’s disturbed by the discovery, and Virginie’s friend, Karim (Sofian Khammes), takes matters into his own hands to get rid of the dangerous locusts one and for all.
He checks on one of the greenhouses, only to find out that Duvivier (Christian Bouillette) has been killed by the bugs.
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Karim then spreads gasoline around the greenhouses in order to try to burn the insects to death, and Virginie is devastated by the loss of her livelihood.
He orders Virginie to go back to her house to seal up all of the windows and to turn off the lights so the locusts don’t invade.
Source: Netflix
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While Virginie is distracted by attempting to put out the flames with a hose, Laura escapes from the house. Meanwhile, Karim dies once the locusts are able to break through one of the closed windows.
Virginie finds her daughter by the lake on the property, but there’s a swarm of locusts flying overhead.
They attack Laura while she’s in the water, and Virginie tries to save her daughter by rubbing blood all over her face. Though the matriarch dips below the surface of the water and it seems like she has died, she emerges a few moments later.
The film ends with Laura and Virginie embracing in the lake.
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Source: Netflix