'Dark Night Of The Soul' Ending Explained & Full Story: Is Alex Dead Or Alive?

An interesting idea doesn’t necessarily ensure a good movie. S.J. Creazzo’s Dark Night of the Soul is a very good example of that. A scientist suffering a car crash and trying her best to survive in the middle of a global pandemic is indeed an exciting idea on paper. But the execution is quite underwhelming. Even with just about eighty minutes of runtime, Dark Night of the Soul is a slog. What further hamstrings it is a predictably generic ending. Anyway, you’re here for an explanation about this movie. Given how paper thin the plot is, there can’t be much of that, but I’m still going to give you one.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the movie? 

Among the many flaws you can point out here, letting the main character narrate things when it is mostly a single-character movie should come at the top of the list. Had there been no spoon-feeding of information to the audience, the movie could have been at least a bit suspenseful. That, however, is not the case, as Dr. Alex Walden lets us know right away that the world is in the middle of a pandemic, caused by a prehistoric virus, and she’s the only person who can supposedly find a cure. Alex is also immune to the virus, most likely because of overexposure. We see her driving a car, before suddenly losing control and crashing it. Upon waking up, Alex finds one of her feet stuck under the wheel. The rest of the film is about Alex trying her best to survive while taking multiple trips down memory lane, which are presented as hallucinations.

What happened in the past?

Alex’s past is the most important component of this story. It eventually becomes the key to her survival. It is another matter that the way we are shown all of that is extremely tedious. Alex’s sister Lori appears first, as we return to a scene where the two sisters are arguing about Alex’s decision to let her husband, Frank, and nine-year-old daughter, Millie, go to Africa in the middle of a pandemic. Alex can’t accompany them because of her job at the CDC. Anyway, Alex and Lori appear to be very different from each other—Alex is the brilliant scientist, while Lori is this chill art enthusiast. Their father raised them differently as well. For Alex, he was very strict, but for Lori, he was quite liberal. The movie sort of tries to justify that by telling us that kind of parenting is okay as every child requires a different type of parenting. Had Alex’s father not made her life difficult, Alex wouldn’t have become a great scientist. Not to mention, Alex’s survival in the present is a result of her upbringing, so in a way, Alex should be grateful to her father for not treating her right. Of course, we need to remember that all of this is happening inside Alex’s head. It wouldn’t be wrong of me to conclude our leading lady has unresolved daddy issues, and even fifteen years after his death, Alex hasn’t been able to move on. What we are seeing is most definitely a projection of her subconscious.

Are Frank and Millie dead? 

The movie does confuse us regarding certain things, including what really happened to Alex’s husband and daughter. You do realize after a while that they are, in fact, dead, and it happened long ago. The mention of the year 2013 only shows that it has been at least a decade. Both Alex’s sister and father kept asking about what Frank lied about, which sort of turns into a mystery that doesn’t have much of a payoff in the end. It’s just that the pandemic happened due to a CDC experiment going wrong, and Frank was actually the whistleblower. The experiment was trying to recreate the prehistoric strain of virus that was found. Frank had to die because he was exposed to the virus, and so was his daughter. It doesn’t make much sense, though, and I blame the wobbly writing of the movie for that.

A young adult version of Millie appears in the movie, cosplaying as a fantasy character from a comic book she used to read in childhood. She is not real, of course, and the reason for her appearance is helping Alex find the courage she needs in this dire situation. While this part is admirable, the appearance of a dog whose name just so happens to be ‘God’ (we actually see the collar) is a bit too much on the nose. That’s also a major problem of the movie—it always seems confused between keeping it subtle and spelling out everything for the audience. 

Does Alex survive? 

The whole point of introducing Daniel and Julia is to ensure Alex’s survival and nothing else. The couple is living a secluded life, and they seem to be pretty sorted with their life. All the people Alex sees might be hallucinations, but ‘God’ the dog most likely belongs to the couple. With a system that helps them spot any intruder or wild animal near their home, the couple gets an alert—a red dot that they see on the digital screen—quite early on. But instead of rushing instantly, Daniel chooses to ignore it for the time being. Only when he sees that red dot has been blinking and not moving for a considerable amount of time, does he decide to make a move. Julia is skeptical, but she accompanies her husband. Whatever little time these two characters get, they keep mentioning something that is eventually going to happen. I believe they are talking about coming across another person but like everything, the writing of this movie is vague as hell and the director never bothers to explain this right. Anyway, Daniel and Julia find Alex, and they rescue her. Alex was on the verge of giving up, but her imaginary daughter encourages her to hang in there, which ultimately saves her. She still has to save the world by finding a cure, after all. 

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