Qifarah Movie Ending Explained & Full Story: Does Marissa Kill Mawar?

Old places bring back memories, and sometimes, they are painful ones. When we go back to the roads we have left behind, we expect closure and some comfort, but what if it curses us with some unforgettable moments? Director Ghaz Abu Bakar’s “Qifarah” revolves around Yusoff, who is returning to his ancestral home after years. What appears to be just another reunion soon turns into a grueling story of secrets, rituals, and horror.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film?

“Qifarah” starts by taking you years ago, when Yusoff is a little kid, playing with his sister Eykha and his friend Din. As the boys play with a wind-up toy monkey, Eykha takes it away, running past their parents who are having dinner. Yusoff and Eykha’s parents, Ghazali and Nur, instruct Eykha to go and sleep. Their mother, Nur, even promises to tuck her in once she gets done with dinner. Before Yusoff and Din go to sleep, Yusoff decides to lend the wind-up monkey toy to Din for the night. As Yusoff sleeps, he gets woken up by Din, who requests him to keep the Monkey, and a mixture of visions appears. 

Years later, Yusoff is married to Marissa, and the couple has a son named Mikhail. Yusoff lives in Cairo, but he is returning to his house as his father, Ghazali, is on his deathbed. Although Marissa requests him to take her and Mikhail with him, Yusoff goes there alone. Pak Mat, their family villa’s servant and butler, drives Yusoff to his house. Yusoff finds everything a bit strange since he was gone for a long time. Upon reaching the house, Feng, the housemaid, takes his bags, and Yusoff meets Eykha, who is now a deranged woman, playing with invisible people and talking to herself. She snaps at Yusoff noticing him after so many years. His dad’s second wife, Mawar, greets him dearly. However, something seems off with her, especially the way she looks at Yusoff.

While venturing through the house, Yusoff reminisces about his childhood and comes across a closet where he used to play hide and seek with Din. As he climbs down, he sees a ghost staring at him in the dark while holding the wind-up monkey. Shortly after running away, Yusoff finally meets his ailing father. Mawar has kept her husband at home, as she believes in natural treatments. Looking at Ghazali, Yusoff gets a bit emotional, but when his father finally opens his eyes, his eyes grow wide, and he screams after spotting a ghost and passes out. That night, exactly at 3 a.m., Yusoff’s sleep gets hampered by the noise made by the trumpet of the monkey. When he wakes up, he finds his window open and the Monkey moving on its own.

What Is Wrong With Yusoff’s House?

When Yusoff met his father, Ghazali got shocked after spotting Din’s ghost standing behind Yusoff. The same ghost also haunted Yusoff when he went inside the closet. The night when he woke up and found the toy running, Yusoff constantly felt as if someone were watching him, which was also the Din’s ghost, obviously.  After Yusoff prays to Allah and chants prayers, the toy stops, and nothing more happens that night.

On the next day, Yusoff gets very angry when he sees that Marissa has arrived with Mikhail. Behind closed doors, the couple get into an altercation where Yusoff confronts Marissa over her extramarital affair from the past. Things get heated, but they ultimately retreat and Marissa takes Mikhail to Ghazali. While getting introduced to his grandson, Ghazali once again gets shocked by looking at Mikhail. Ghazali draws Yusoff close, he utters the word “snake,” before passing away. Nothing makes sense to Yusoff. Pak Mat suggests doing Ghazali’s funeral the next day and they keep Ghazali’s dead body in the drawing room.

That night, Yusoff finds his wife lying on the bed, turned to the other side, clearly mad at him due to their fight earlier. Just as he is about to apologize, he gets startled by hearing Marissa’s voice coming from the bathroom door. Marissa was just entering the room, and clearly there was no one on the bed (unless there actually was, just saying!). On that same night, when Yusoff climbs down to the drawing room, he finds Ghazali’s body missing. He points his flashlight to the corner, only to find his dead father eating raw flesh. Din’s ghost reappears beside Yusoff, and Ghazali pounces on his son. As he closes his eyes in horror, Feng comes to his rescue and switches the lights on. Yusoff is shocked to realize he was lying beside his father’s corpse the whole time. There’s zero doubt that the house is haunted, and Yusoff is yet to find a solution to this huge problem. 

Is Nur Alive?

Yusoff does not remember much about Nur but Eykha keeps telling him that she often goes to meet her at night. The night when he gets scared by Ghazali’s corpse, Pak Mat enters the room, holding Eykha tightly. Pak Mat informs Yusoff that Eykha always stands below a tree at night, but when Yusoff asks what lies under the tree, Pak Mat shuts down.

The next day, when everyone lowers Ghazali’s coffin, the hole suddenly starts to fill up with blood, but Yusoff and others moves forward with the job anyway. In the meantime, Mikhail gets startled to spot his grandfather standing in the distance, When Eykha and Mikhail play football later that day, the ball lands in a distant corner as Mikhail runs to fetch it. But the more he gets near the ball, an invisible force kicks the ball further away. When Mikhail finally picks up the ball, a pair of hands comes out of the ground and holds him tightly, knocking the boy senseless. Following this, Mikhail remains in the house under Mawar’s strict care. That evening, Yusoff receives another shock while returning from the tahlil held in memory of Ghazali, Pak Mat finally reveals everything to him. He reveals that Mawar was a powerful witch, an expert in black magic, who added to Ghazali’s power and wealth. She also forced Pak Mat to be her slave. One night, when she was sacrificing Din’s life, Mawar caught a young Yusoff watching through the keyhole. Pak Mat knocked Yusoff out from behind, but as Mawar tried to take his life, Nur resisted. A heated altercation followed where Mawar stabbed Nur, killing her on the spot while Ghazali stood there watching, and not protesting at all. The spot where we see Eykha stand at night is the exact spot where Nur’s grave lies. 

Hearing all this, Yusoff finally reconnects the dots. In the uncontrollable rage, he slaps Pak Mat, leaving him stranded on the road, and then drives away to home. As Pak Mat tries to return, he falls into a pit, which turns out to be a grave. Hundreds of dead hands hold him down while Nur’s ghost comes to take revenge and kills Pak Mat.

Does Marissa kill Mawar?

By the time Yusoff reaches the villa, things have already escalated. In this short span of time, Mawar has taken a place in Marissa’s heart already. When Marissa first arrived at the villa, she was startled at how young Mawar looked. I hope you have noticed it earlier as well — it felt as if Mawar had not aged at all. Although it was unsettling, Marissa’s perception of Ghazali’s wife gradually changed. 

One day, she sat down with Mawar, and they discussed their lives. Marissa lost both of her parents in an accident. Mawar claims that she also had to watch her parents die in a fire before Ghazali rescued her. After this, Mawar urges Marissa to call her mother. Unknowingly, Marissa’s love for Mawar creates a conflict between her and Yusoff when Mikhail gets unconscious. While Yusoff urges to take him to the hospital, Mawar emphasizes treating Mikhail at home, just like what she did with Ghazali. As Marissa sides with Mawar, it leaves Yusoff enraged. They fought once again, and this time, Marissa started to think that Yusoff was controlling her. When Yusoff left for the mosque, Marissa came down to check on Mikhail after some time. To her surprise, she found a group of men in black robes sitting at the dinner table while eating rotting meat, human eyeballs, and blood. 

Soon, she finds out Mawar’s real identity as the witch discloses that Mikhail is going to be her next sacrifice. The men leave Feng tied up to a chair, tie Marissa’s hands, and drag her down in the basement, the same place where she once sacrificed Din. Upon returning, Yusoff frees Feng but gets caught by Mawar’s men. Mawar tries to cause a divide by revealing that Mikhail is not Yusoff’s son but a product of Marissa’s affair. It leaves Yusoff heartbroken, but the love for his son overpowers everything as he still tries to save Mikhail. Yusoff remembers Ghazali’s words before his death and breaks off the snake bracelet in Mawar’s hand. As the bracelet falls off, Mawar collapses on the ground, shouting in agonizing pain. Obviously, the bracelet was fueling the witch for all these years, and with that destroyed, she becomes powerless. As Mawar turns into a frail old woman, Yusoff knocks Mawar’s men unconscious. Marissa spots the chandelier’s rope and cuts it off, making it collapse on Mawar. Her death signifies the aftermath of bending the rules of our universe and challenging the course of time to stay young. The flame in which Mawar burns is the hellfire that she deserves after taking so many innocent lives.

...