'Spring Garden' Movie Ending Explained: What Does The Last Scene Mean?

Spring Garden has an intriguing mystery at the center of it, but the execution is ultimately really messy, especially the overengineered climax, which doesn’t really make much sense. The movie being inspired by real-life ghost stories turns out to be mostly a gimmick. My agenda here is to simplify the plot of the movie and explain the real meaning of the (unnecessarily) confusing ending. Let us get on with it.

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens In The Movie?

A group of young boys and girls—Yeong-sik, Moon-hee, Eun-joo, and Jin-rae, all about 19-20—enter a gorgeous-looking house in the middle of nowhere. They’re looking for someone named Hyun-joo. As I promised to simplify things, let me just say this right away—Hyun-joo is dead, and her ghost haunts the house, which is known as Spring Garden. These four are not responsible for Hyun-joo’s death. But they used to make money off her by forcing her to prostitute herself, effectively making her life totally miserable. Anyway, the group encounters some unnatural things and leaves the house. 

Elsewhere, pregnant Soo-he wakes up to the horror of seeing that her perfectly normal husband, Chang-su, has hanged himself to death. Detective Nam, who’s in charge of the investigation, rules the cause of death as suicide only. But Soo-he is not convinced, as Chang-su didn’t leave a note. What’s further astonishing is the guy was doing absolutely okay before his death. As if life couldn’t turn further worse for the grieving widow, she has a miscarriage on the day of her husband’s wake. Shortly after, Chang-su’s attorney contacts Soo-he and lets her know that her dead husband has left her a house. Chang-su originally wanted the house to be a surprise; that’s why he didn’t tell Soo-he anything, as it was being remodeled. But what’s strange is a random photograph of the house that was taken two days ago, where one can see Chang-su standing in one of the windows. It’s not exactly a clear picture, but there’s no doubt that it’s Chang-su.

Does Soo-he Move In To The New House?

Upon seeing the house in person, Soo-he realizes the house is exactly the kind of dream house she’s wanted since forever. Even the name, ‘Spring Garden,’ was chosen by her only. Meanwhile, we see an anxious-looking man, In-kyeom, looking at Soo-he and her sister Hye-ran as they visit the house. Just when they’re about to return, Soo-he gets a glimpse of Chang-su, standing in the window, just like in the photo. Naturally, she rushes back in, and inside the house, she sees a shadowy figure that looks a lot like Chang-su, but Soo-he faints, and we don’t get to see anything else. Doctors in horror movies always tend to call anything a hallucination, and this movie is no different. Anyway, Soo-he moving into the house was always a given, as was her experiencing supernatural things inside—from cracking an egg and finding a dead chick fetus to sensing the presence of another person (it’s Hyun-joo’s ghost, by the way). When Hye-ran and her family—husband and two kids, Dong-hyeon and Ji-won—come to visit Soo-he, the kids also experience things that can’t be explained logically. While playing outside, Ji-won sees something in the bushes that grabs her hands and suggests they can be family. Ji-won first tells everyone that it was Chang-su but later denies having seen anything. Dong-Hyeon, on the other hand, says it was a strange woman (it has to be Hyun-joo).

What Happened to Hyun-joo and Chang-su?

There was always supposed to be a connection between Hyun-joo and Chang-su. The movie beats around the bush way too long revealing what it actually was. When Hyun-joo was hiding from the group (the one we see in the beginning), she took shelter in the house and accidentally met Chang-su. He was kind and compassionate and decided to help her by letting her stay in the house. I’m not entirely sure why Chang-su would let someone he doesn’t even know stay on his property (there’s nothing wrong with helping, but there are other ways), but good writing is not a strong suit of this movie. Anyway, they got close, and Chang-su cheated on Soo-he without her knowing. Things got out of hand when Hyun-joo became pregnant and Chang-su refused to take responsibility. She was even shamed for participating in prostitution, which was not even her choice. An enraged Hyun-joo cut open her belly to prove there really was a fetus inside and died. Her ghost remained inside, but then Soo-he came, and she got to use her as a vessel to get out. The way everything goes down here is quite messy and not properly explained by the movie itself. However, watching those four people—Yeong-sik, Moon-hee, Eun-joo, and Jin-rae—getting punished, either by death or freak accident, was kind of satisfying.

What happens to Soo-he in the end?

Just to make things more clear, Hyun-joo’s ghost wants revenge on everyone who has ever wronged her. But that’s not all she wants. Even as a ghost, she desires a family. That makes sense, as having a family with Chang-su was her final wish. Given that Soo-he had nothing to do with her terrible fate, Hyun-joo doesn’t really have any reason to hurt her. That said, she’s a vengeful ghost, and had it not been for Soo-he, she probably would have been alive and living her life with Chang-su and her kid. So whatever she does to Soo-he—taking control of her, making her hurt Eun-joo, and then possessing both Hye-ran and little Ji-won, who are very close to Soo-he—can be considered a reaction to what happened to her. I suppose In-keyom was a shaman who wanted to handle things his own way—the character and his background are not fleshed out enough, unfortunately. His death at the hands of Hyun-joo’s ghost during the climax can be considered collateral damage.

In the end, however, all that was needed to calm Hyun-joo was Soo-he hugging her (she was hugging a possessed Hye-ran, though) and accepting her as family. That said, the final scene—of a pregnant Soo-he, standing in the same window, looking outside while another woman looks at her—doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m not even going into how Soo-he became pregnant, maybe it could have been IVF, but why would she act totally zoned out? There’s no doubt she is not dead, then why make her do that? Although her taking in an abused woman—like the one who was looking at her from outside—is justifiable, considering everything that has happened to her. The end credit shows us the real house and the lore around it, but that ultimately doesn’t add much value.

...