'The Witch: Revenge' Movie Ending Explained & Full Story: Did Olena Kill The Commander?

I’m quite certain y’all thought the Ukrainian fantasy-horror movie The Witch: Revenge was a proper ‘bang for the buck’ experience, because that’s my opinion as well. This movie happens to be exactly what the title says—a witch taking her revenge (on some evil idiots who absolutely deserved it). It has a perfect structure, where they set up the story in the opening fifteen minutes, and from there on, it’s all chaos till the end. For a horror fare on an OTT platform (Prime Video), The Witch: Revenge is remarkably gnarly and filled with elements that every fan of body horror would absolutely love. Sure, the movie doesn’t explore the lore of its witch(es), but that hardly matters in my opinion. Let us now get into discussing the movie and its ending scene, for which you’re here.

Spoilers Ahead

Olena and Andril are pretty much your picture-perfect couple, who happily live together and have a very cute dog—Ozzy. However, what Andril doesn’t know is that Olena is actually a witch—who’s more than a hundred years old at least. In fact, the movie actually begins with a premonition when Olena wakes up from a nightmare. Well, it does come true pretty soon as Ukraine is invaded by Russia (the movie is set during the very recent Russian invasion of the country, which happened in February 2022). With the country in such a terrible situation, Andril has to go back to the army (presumably, he used to be a part of that in the past), but before that, he has to make sure Olena and Ozzy are safe. So, upon Olena’s suggestion, he decides to take them to her aunt Yevedoska, who lives in a cabin deep inside the forest. On their way to the cabin, they are interrupted by a group of Russian soldiers, who are up to no good. When the soldiers make it quite clear that they’re not going to let the couple go and their intention is to kill Andril and then rape Olena, Andril promptly reacts by killing a few of them before driving their car away. He also doesn’t hesitate to run another one over and leave him half dead. The soldiers expectedly keep firing as they go away, and Ozzy gets shot in the process. Upon reaching Yevedoska’s place, Olena realizes that Andril has been shot too and it’s too late for him already. He dies after bidding a tearful goodbye to Olena. Heartbroken and distraught, Olena decides to take revenge on the soldiers—obviously with her supernatural powers. Yevedoska, also a witch, who was once saved by Olena, advises her against it as it is going to take a toll on her—but having nothing to lose anymore, Olena decides to not back down. After that, it goes exactly how it should be—the soldiers dying horrifyingly, one after another, and it’s really fun to watch.

Even though The Witch: Revenge is hardly about anything other than what you see on the screen, the term ‘Witch of Konotop’ is uttered by one of the soldiers when they’re all in a state of dismay. So, out of curiosity, I decided to research a bit about that, and here’s what I found out. “The Witch of Konotop” is actually a popular Ukrainian horror fantasy story that was written way back in 1833 (then got published in 1837). The story does have some similarities with the movie we’re talking about—like there’s a character called Olena, women are subjected to torture by men, and those evil men are ultimately being punished. Hence,we can actually say that it is a surface level  adaptation of “The Witch of Konotop”. However, those who already know the story can surely draw parallels to it, and in case you’re not familiar with it, you can still enjoy the movie as it is. The director—who’s also called Andril, by the way—has done a commendable job at keeping things simple and entertaining.

There’s not much to describe about the death of the soldiers, as it’s all pretty much as you’d expect—urinating blood, burping out hairballs along with a note that practically says their end is near, vicious-looking worms coming out of the male part, and so on. Killing Andril and tormenting Olena is not the only crime they commit, by the way. In the middle of all this, we see a few of them capturing a local woman and one soldier, who’s called Gangsta and is easily the worst of them all, continuously raping her. Thanks to Olena, the woman does get a crack at revenge, though, and she gets to chop Gangsta’s hand with an axe. This is obviously one of the most satisfying scenes to watch. 

The Russian commander has to be one of the worst movie characters I’ve seen in anything. For a considerable amount of time, the guy denies the presence of the supernatural and keeps blaming the Ukrainian army for all the deaths, even though he can’t logically make much sense. He does go for what you call a ‘witch hunt’ by the end, which mirrors the events of “The Witch of Konotop.” He finds Yevedoska’s cabin and decides to teach Olena a lesson by raping her—only to find out Olena has tricked him into abusing one of his fellow soldiers. Olena then intends to kill him, which would potentially end her as well, but Yevedoska lets her know that she is pregnant. Ozzy also appears to be alright. The news of pregnancy not only comes as a hope for Olena, as it’s an implication that she has not lost Andril completely. That also prompts her to let the commander go, but not without a scratch. The commander we find at the end of the movie is completely deranged, as we see him telling some other Russian soldiers about this witch he encountered. Surely no one is going to believe him, and he’s going to end up in a mental asylum in Russia and spend the rest of his life there—which is not going to be a party for him, for sure. The Witch: Revenge ends with Olena cuddling her newborn son, who she has named ‘Andril.’ Are we going to get a sequel to this? Not likely, as the ending seems to be quite fitting and definitive, in my opinion.