The Deep House Ending Explained- Lovecraft, Flooded Towns, And Helpful Locals

Haunted house movies are a dime a dozen. Paranormal Activity breathed new life into the tired subgenre by introducing the found footage angle and some truly unnerving shots. Hereditary spun things with tiny modeled versions of houses as lovely as they were creepy, and The Conjuring launched an entire franchise. There have been some great films like The Others and the wildly underappreciated 13 Ghosts, but for every Crimson Peak, there is a Demon House. The Deep House, written and directed by the filmmaking duo of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who brought us the horrifying home invasion thriller Inside, is back with a fresh take on the haunted house trope. By submerging a very haunted house deep under a lake, everything is bathed in sickly green light and eerie imagery.

YouTubers Tina(Camille Rowe) and Ben(James Jagger, son of Mick Jagger) shoot hidden supernatural locations. Abandoned sanitoriums, creepy orphanages, sunken mansions are all perfect for subscribers who love watching Ben torture Tina. Unfortunately, Ben’s latest find has increased the danger by making them dive to the location. The only problem is when they get there; they find a very packed tourist trap. Luckily a helpful local tells them about another underwater mansion that is isolated and largely unknown.

Not only is the newest super-secret attraction potentially haunted, but they have a limited supply of oxygen, putting a ticking clock on the expedition. Making things even more interesting is you can’t simply run out the door. Swimming requires more patience and a significant amount more planning. Tight spaces you might squeeze through on land become unpassable in the water with all the equipment on. It’s a unique spin on things, and one Bustillo and Maury put to good use. Here’s everything you need to know about The Deep House ending, the post-credits scene, and sunken lake houses.

The ending of The Deep House?

While searching the house, they find evidence of child kidnapping, occult activity, and strange video recordings. If that wasn’t enough to make their toes curl, they find a locked door in the kitchen with a large crucifix over it. That should have been it for the couple, but Ben is greedy, and he leads Tina down into the basement, where they find two people chained up. Unfortunately, their fate was sealed the minute they entered the house and potentially even before that. Their equipment begins to act strangely when they are outside the house in front of the crypt, which could mean they never had a chance to escape.

Ben and Tina try to swim out through the same attic window they came in only to find it bricked up. This is impossible unless there is an evil entity at work. After repeated attempts at escape fail, they return to the basement, and Ben unmasks the couple. Evidently, this is all that is needed for the house to unleash its full power.

At the end of The Deep House, Ben is possessed by the spirit of the house, which has convinced him they should stay. He convinces Tina to go back into the cellar, where they watch a video of the Montegnac’s death. Pierre managed to escape, but his parents were killed and chained up in the basement. Ben snaps out of it, and right as Tina is about to lead them to safety, the woman chained in the basement comes up behind him and stabs him. Tina escapes but runs out of oxygen before she reaches the surface of the lake. She takes off her mask but can not hold her breath long enough, and she drowns in the water. The house has claimed two more victims.

Who is haunting the house?

The sunken mansion is not so much haunted as it is occupied by a couple who has thwarted death doing “satanic shit”. It seems before the house was flooded and left under the lake, a family kidnapped, tortured, and killed children from a nearby town. Once the parents discovered what had happened to their children, they took up their pitchforks or shotguns as they were and chained the couple in the basement of the house, locked the door, barricaded it with a large cross, and left them to rot. There’s not a ton of explanation and what is there feels very Freddy Krueger. We never find out why they kidnapped children and what they were doing with the occult symbols and stuff, but it appears whatever it was made them immortal.

Before the house was flooded, it was boarded up and fortified. As Tina points out, that is very weird considering it was going to be flooded. Stranger still, everything in the house has decayed less than it should. Most things are just as they would have been in the ’80s when their home sunk. In all likelihood, whatever evil force that kept the couple alive also protected the house and potentially that part of the lake, which is why the car was preserved as well.

When Ben and Tina enter the house, they find a door with deep scratch marks as if someone was trying to claw their way out. This could be one of three possibilities, and all are bad. First, the many children the couple took could have locked the children there, and it was them trying to get free. A second option could be previous divers who became trapped like Ben and Tina. Lastly, the demon-worshipping couple could have tried to claw their way out of the house after they were left to drown. This should have been enough to make most people turn back but not Ben, who needs every “like” he can get.

Ben sees someone behind a sheet in a bedroom, and the drone constantly detects movement even though they can’t see anyone or anything. Even before Ben unleashes the couple by demasking them, they were roaming free. It is never explained if the people were always evil or if the house turned them evil. There is apparent satanic imagery with snakes, skulls, and symbols, but we don’t know which came first. Whatever it is is powerful. The line that both Pierre says earlier and the couple says in the film’s last moments is interesting. “That is not dead, can eternal lie.” The quote is part of a longer quote from H.P. Lovecraft.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”

H.P. Lovecraft

The quote essentially means the house and the inhabitants have the power to avert death and remain in stasis as long as they want or need to. In Lovecraft’s writing, it is in reference to the Elder Gods who can hibernate until the time is right to return to power. Thus, they never truly die, just as the couple will go on claiming lives forever.

What does the post credits scene mean?

Two young women have been led to the same lake by Pierre, who led Tina and Ben there earlier. They look concerned, so maybe they will think twice and return to wherever they came from. The car Ben and Tina found earlier could have been from other unsuspecting tourists who became victims of the house. Pierre leads people to their watery grave as a sacrifice to whoever the original occupants worshipped. He is the Montegnac’s son. Ben finds a family tree and recognizes the man who guided them to the mansion. He lures dumb tourists to the spot and feeds them to his parents, who are stuck there for eternity. It is his sick way of caring for them. The post-credits scene means he will not stop taking people to his family home.

Flooded towns and odd masks

There are entire flooded towns all over the globe. Some of them are caused by natural disasters like floods, tsunamis, or earthquakes, but the majority of them are from deliberate flooding to make dams. These sunken remains are everywhere from Russia to the United States, and some of the creepiest leave church steeples rising above the surface covered in moss and decay. So although this house is not real, there are plenty that are. Like Netflix’s Curon, people should be wary of what is below the surface.

Scolder’s Bridle’s or shame masks were common methods of punishment. They were most commonly used on women as a way to both embarrass and torture the offendee. For example, the couple is wearing shame masks when Ben and Tina find them. Later, these masks were placed on them to humiliate the couple and make their punishment even worse.

The Deep House has an intriguing hook, and the underwater shots are claustrophobic and anxiety-inducing. Although the plot is a little thin, there is enough there to warrant a watch. You can find it streaming on Epix, or anywhere you get VOD today.