Tenement Movie Ending Explained And Full Story: Is Soriya Possessed By Metta?

Remember Gabe Lewis’ bizarre “avant-garde” horror that traumatized everyone at Dunder Mifflin’s Halloween party? That wasn’t so much a movie as it was a cursed USB drive full of unsettling footage.  The Cambodian folk-horror, Tenement, takes that same unsettling energy and dares to create something so vague that it wants to be considered as  cinema. Sure, it technically has a plot and characters, but instead of peeling back its own mythology, the film just hurls a steady stream of disturbing imagery your way: a claustrophobic apartment block, a cultish community, and their beloved child ghost who clearly has beef with the living. The atmosphere is thick, the mystery simmers, but without any real backstory to latch onto, the whole experience becomes a guessing game with no answer key. Horror doesn’t need a Wikipedia-sized lore dump, but give us something; even the Ramsay brothers knew a ghost needs a motive.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film?

Soriya is a young manga artist living with her photographer boyfriend, Daichi. After her mother’s death, while the couple sift through her belongings, Daichi uncovers an old box containing a photograph of Soriya’s mother as a child, standing alongside her own mother and sister at their former home in Cambodia. Soriya’s mother had relocated to Japan at a very young age, insisting throughout her life that all their relatives had died long ago. When Soriya’s publisher urges her to create something more personal for her upcoming horror manga, Daichi suggests they travel to Cambodia and explore her family’s past. Excited and curious, the couple embarks on the journey. They are greeted upon arrival by a man named Thep, who has arranged for them to stay in the very same apartment building where Soriya’s mother once lived. To their surprise, Soriya still has an aunt—Mao—who resides in the building, and Thep has already informed her of her niece’s return.

During their drive, the affable taxi driver, Jam, grows uneasy upon learning about their destination. He warns them about the eerie rumors and chilling stories surrounding the building, but Thep promptly silences him. By the time the couple finally arrives at the aging apartment complex called Metta, they remain blissfully unaware of the dark, unsettling secrets waiting for them inside.

Who is the mysterious woman living in Aunt Mao’s house? 

When Aunt Mao sees Soriya, she is overjoyed to finally lay eyes on her niece, whom she hasn’t seen since infancy, yet there’s something lurking beneath that smile, a subtle hint of ulterior intent glinting in her expression. Mao insists that fate has brought Soriya back to her, a sentiment that quickly curdles into something far more unsettling. Her home-cooked dishes are disturbingly unappetizing, and though Daichi forces himself to eat out of politeness, his discomfort is obvious. Mao’s young daughter, Nimol, is warm and affectionate toward the couple, happily coloring with them until Mao abruptly interrupts Soriya to introduce her and Daichi to someone “special.” She leads them into a dim, red-lit room where she lays out large plates of food and ritualistic offerings before an elderly woman seated in a rocking chair, her fingernails long and rotting. The woman struggles even to sip the milk Mao tries to give her, yet she reaches out to gently caress Soriya’s face as Mao announces that her long-lost family has returned. If that encounter weren’t eerie enough, the creep factor spikes later that night, when every resident of the building quietly emerges from their apartments holding candles and converges to pray to a mysterious entity. By this point, it becomes chillingly clear that the frail old woman is at the center of something sinister, a figure of worship within a community devoted to the shadows.

Do the people of Metta sacrifice Soriya against her will? 

On their second night in the building, that same mysterious woman they first glimpsed upon arrival appears again, but now she’s performing a grotesque ritual dance in the hallway, surrounded by candles, voodoo dolls, and smoking incense, her cheeks split open, eyes blazing red, and her contorting limbs crackling like every possession scene ever dialed up to eleven. Daichi leaves for a work assignment elsewhere, and Soriya insists on staying behind to focus on her manga. Left alone, she plays her mother’s old tape recorder; the music abruptly cuts out, and her mother’s terrified voice comes through instead, confessing that her grand-aunt has died and that she fears the malevolent presence will seek a new host. She reveals she fled to Japan to shield Soriya from the horrific “demands” of this place, which makes Soriya’s return feel like a tragic cosmic joke. That same night, Soriya awakens to find the building’s residents crowding around her, pinning her to the bed as they force a foul concoction down her throat while a man presents a severed pig’s head and Aunt Mao splashes blood over her. The ancient woman from the red room then crawls onto Soriya, shrieking with exposed tendons and shredded flesh while whispers flood Soriya’s mind, until she wakes up. But it wasn’t just a nightmare; the ritual remnants still litter the bed. Terrified, she steps outside only to learn the old woman has died. With Daichi unreachable, she’s terrified, and the building’s horrors escalate as the vengeful ghost of a little girl begins killing residents one by one: a child, a man on the roof, and another man hanged to death.  Daichi even unknowingly captured her in a photograph. It becomes clear that this spirit, a girl named Metta, refuses to stop until she finds her next vessel. One woman lashes out, blaming Soriya’s mother for lying about the true nature of the apartment and trapping them all in this cursed existence, yet frustratingly, the film refuses to explore what actually happened during her mother’s time there, leaving the story’s most crucial answers buried in the dark.

Why does Metta haunt the building?

Completely shattered despite the short time he was away. Aunt Mao barges into the apartment and attempts to force a drink into Soriya, who refuses, prompting Daichi to snap and grab Mao’s arm. Feeling humiliated, Mao storms out, and Soriya scolds Daichi for being rude, convinced Mao is only trying to protect her. Daichi, however, refuses to let Soriya be consumed by this madness. He quickly calls Jam for help and begins packing their bags, but before they can escape, the building’s residents break in, knocking Daichi unconscious with a brick, and drag Soriya away. Mao urges Soriya to stop resisting and accept her fate so they can finally be a real family. She reveals that the spirit Metta has chosen Soriya to become her new vessel, and they must honor Metta’s wishes. What follows is a surreal delirium as Soriya wanders through the building in a dream state, surrounded by corpses while young Metta sobs for her mother, begging her to wake up. With her mother long gone, Metta’s grief hints that a terrible event once wiped out the entire building’s inhabitants, and she died alone afterward. The film never clarifies how Soriya’s family was entwined in this curse, only that they ensured Metta would always have a woman from their bloodline in each generation to sustain herself. Soriya once again regains consciousness and finds herself tied to a bed. This time Metta’s face is hideously disfigured, and she vomits a thick, jelly-like mass of blood directly into Soriya’s mouth.  

Is Soriya possessed by Metta?

Tenement’s ending sees Daichi stumbling upon Soriya, both battered and barely hanging on, and Soriya can hardly stay upright. Daichi tries the classic horror movie escape down the stairs, only to loop right back to the same cursed floor. Enter Aunt Mao, creeping forward like a nightmare mother hen, begging Soriya to stop hiding. Soriya grabs an iron rod and swings, but instead of Mao, she accidentally kills Nimol, the sweet kid who loved coloring with them. Mao’s anguished wail could crack concrete, but somehow the couple finally manages to break free, and Jam rescues them, driving off into the night like everything is going to be okay. And for a moment, the film really wants us to buy that fairy tale exit, with Soriya back in Japan, publishing her shiny new manga, all smiles. But then a stranger quietly hands her a glass of milk and walks away. And who loves milk? Little kids like Metta. Suddenly we are yanked right back to Cambodia, where Daichi wakes up bound inside that suffocating “punishment room” Soriya mentioned earlier, screaming for help while little Nimol plucks at weeds nearby, which already tells us she did not stay dead, and Metta joins her, happily playing like two kids at recess from hell. Meanwhile, Soriya is still trapped in Metta’s domain, sitting on that same rocking chair like every host before her, lips painted with the red lipstick Metta prefers, doomed to be the next beautiful doll for a ghost who refuses to let go.

Tenement is a film dripping with mood—humid hallways, oppressive silence, and a cultish community that clearly shops for home decor exclusively in “cursed object” catalogs. The setup is strong, the atmosphere is dank in the best way, and when the film wants to terrify, it really knows how to contort a limb and light a candle. But for every juicy scare, there’s a gaping hole in the mythology that the script just refuses to patch. We keep hearing whispers of generational curses, bloodline obligations, tragic pasts;  then the movie slams the door shut right when we lean in for answers. Even the ending feels like a horror matryoshka doll, an escape inside a trap inside another trap, and we never learn how this whole twisted tradition began in the first place. There is a fascinating idea simmering here: a ghost girl so broken by death that she needs to crawl inside someone else’s life to feel human again, and a family forced to serve as her eternal battery pack. Was Soriya’s mother actually trying to save her, or did she simply pass the curse down and run? Did the building’s tenants willingly sell their souls to Metta, or did they, like Daichi, wake up one day chained in a punishment room and told to worship a child demon with a dairy obsession? The movie hints at trauma passed through generations like rotten heirlooms—but it never digs deep enough into what that really means. Still, if you’re into folk horror that leaves you queasy, confused, and aggressively Googling Cambodian ghost myths at 3 am, this could be your brand of nightmare fuel. Just don’t expect much clarity. Or sleep.

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