The Dreadful (2026) Movie Review & Ending Explained: Does Anne Go With Jago?

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Natasha Kermani’s The Dreadful is a quintessential example of classic horror being stunted into something hopelessly banal and pointlessly regurgitated. When a cult film no less than Onibaba is being adapted, expectations would naturally skyrocket as well as extreme cynicism gain immediate precedence over every other emotion. Such an unsettling classic demands a filmmaker and script that can match or at least live up to some of its promised brilliance. Unfortunately, you are in for massive disappointment here. To lure audiences in with the bait of adaptation and then scupper them is infinitely treacherous.

The Dreadful (2026) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Firstly, this is a butchery of a classic, denuding it of what it is capable of. The adaptation feels simultaneously toothless and entirely unwarranted. With any reinterpretation, questions arise around the need and futility. This film lands squarely in the latter, begging you to ask why it mounted such efforts with a screenplay and cast as uncommitted, apart from Hayden. Only she seems to know the brief and she does deliver extraordinarily, turning up the pulpy and campy with pure relish and manic relentlessness. The performance doesn’t deserve a film as clueless and wayward and scattershot as this, rather in a more solidly constructed horror piece.

This adaptation flirts with several intense quandaries but flinches and recedes at critical points, draining the material of potential discomfort. What unfolds feels strangely predictable, tiringly anaemic and something desperately inimical to the act of reinterpretation. You can almost feel the adaptation resisting and chafing at the classic. The opposition sticks out instead of blending in a easily congruent mix. Turner and Harrington struggle to invest any of it with grimy realism, frequently shortchanged by the screenplay and their own limited tools. Distance slaps in, instead of unease and terror, the worst things to happen in such a film.

How does Jago’s arrival shake up the situation?

Set in the 15th century, the film spins around Anne (Sophie Turner), who lives in squalid poverty with her tyrant mother-in-law, Morwen. The hope is Seamus, Anne’s husband, would return from the war. The film unfurls at the time of the War of the Roses. It hangs at the periphery of this strange, uncanny tale. Morwen may be grateful for Anne’s support but doesn’t show the generosity. Life is hard and miserable and they toil to ensure their sustenance with no other support trickling in. They pray for Seamus to return and restore dignity and good times to the family and take them to a decent state of being.

Suddenly, one day, Anne stumbles across Jago. It’s her childhood friend, played by Kit Harrington. Seamus and Jago had left for the war together. However, only Jago has returned. At dinner, Jago apprises that Seamus was slain by thieves. The women are aghast and shattered. Their sole ray of hope is now vanquished. How would they survive such grim times without hope to fortify and carry them through? Jago talks of the horror Seamus and he witnessed, which disillusioned them and only led them to the tragedy that eventually unfurled.

A chain of events unleashes in quick, dramatic succession with the arrival of Jago. His entry marks the turning point in their lives. Is it for better or worse? Time will tell as circumstances careen towards a hot, ugly, frenetic mess of charged emotions and convulsed motivations. Anne is sympathetic to Morwen relying on her but their equation has fostered a terrible, vicious sort of dependency that allows one to thrive and the other to perennially suffer. Morwen is anxious that Anne will abandon her and marry Jago and go away. Morwen kills random strangers and this is how she brings in money and food for their sustenance. Morwen tries to tear the two apart. But her efforts go in vain. The intimacy between Anne and Jago keeps growing. He too tells Morwen that she cannot keep persisting in tying Anne so close. She must let Anne go and make her own independent choices, free of guilt, where her joy can be found. But Morwen can’t stomach this. The dependency has steeped in too thick.

Who is the knight that brings terror?

Anne spikes Morwen’s food with somniferous herbs so that she can have a day of pleasure with Jago. There’s sexual thrill and satiation, but of course she does return to Morwen. Peculiar things happen. A knight seems to be perturbed by Anne and Jago. Morwen tracks down this knight and attacks him with a sharp knife. After the impaling is done, she tries to make away with his coins when suddenly his helmet summons her. To her horror, she discovers it’s her son. Seamus looks abased and doesn’t want to own up. This isn’t what he had envisaged when he first went away to the war. It’s a fall of dignity.

After the helmet is brought home, more malicious things begin to unroll. Anne finally makes up her mind that she does want to be with Jago. Yes, there’s the guilt of abandoning Morwen but Jago makes her see the beauty and love she’s denying herself. When she confesses her wish of marrying Jago to Morwen, the latter is naturally outraged. She refuses to entertain it and is furthermore determined to quell this possibility. Morwen cannot bear the thought of Anne severing herself and eking out her own path of happiness. Morwen warns of the knight who will punish her. Anne is miffed and scampers away with Jago. Anne tries to infuse piety into Jago, but her endeavour fails. It turns out Jago has always been envious of Seamus getting Anne as his wife. At the war, a knight had accosted the men. But it was an evil spirit that took immediate possession of Seamus when he put on the helmet and Jago had abandoned Seamus amidst the fear-filled frenzy.

Anne rushes to Morwen’s house for cautioning her. But the latter has already put on the helmet. A great scuffle ensues wherein Anne grabs a wooden cross and breaks the helmet into pieces. A regretful Morwen begs Anne to forgive her. The two women reconcile.

The Dreadful (2026) Movie Ending Explained:

Does Anne Go With Jago?

The helmet does pursue Anne but it doesn’t have the damaging effect on her. It has no grip on her. The helmet goes after only those whose souls are rent by greed and violence. Anne has so much goodness and piety her persona shields her against the spirit. Morwen also observes a halo around Anne. The latter remains unscathed from the helmet’s circle of horror.

Ultimately, Anne parts ways with Jago. She doesn’t want yet another man controlling her. The minute she declares her decision, Jago badmouths her as a hag, which only reaffirms that she made the right choice. Anne goes back to Morwen. The relationship has now more honesty and transparency. Anne has the power in the household and doesn’t mind caring after Morwen as long as she has her freedom intact. Morwen also gets more secure. The ending shows her clasping onto a gold chain, the origins of which aren’t specified. There’s ambiguity whether she’ll stay pious or revert to putting on the helmet and triggering a spate of violence. For now, there’s safety and stability in the relationship between the women.

The Dreadful (2026) Movie Review:

Kermani’s filmmaking doesn’t trust the power of atmospherics, easily piggybacking instead on Jamal Green’s score. The music cranks up too gratingly instead of allowing a sense of disquiet to fester and loom. There’s an odious underlining to the style, taking the shine off what could have been petrifying and compelling scenes. Even the shift to Anne and Jago stultifies the film further instead of bringing clever, disorienting twists. As a result, love triangle at the centre never feels as coherent or solidly fleshed out as you might expect. Abandon your hopes at the door for the film struggles to land any of its detours and rationale as convincing, despite being armed with a blueprint that has worked so magnificently.

Much of the blame can also be arrogated to Turner and Harrington who aren’t capable of handling the film’s skewering emotional leaps. There’s lack of sexual heat, jarring especially given the romantic assumptions the duo has to carry. It diverts and skins the film of its power and bite, turning it too tame and mild and just not engaging enough to put you on the edge. The cast is so severely imbalanced in the effects they conjure it bothers even doubly. There’s Marcia Gay Hayden, who’s so gleefully vicious she runs away with every scene. The Dreadful bears some thrill only in watching her sashay and hack through her scenes. It’s the kind of performance that soars above its meagre confines, demanding absolute attention. Hayden is delicious and vituperative.

But is she enough to rescue and redeem the entire film? The answer is a roaring no, when the film is this misguided and tonally uncertain and outright dull. Even the braver turns don’t land. Greater disaffection trudges in where there should have been more intriguing, smarter narrative moves. Why is there such inconsistency and this level of amateurish force-fitting? The film lacks confidence and direction to get where it must, steamrolled over by endless banalities and irksome musical accentuations that diminish its hold instead of cleaving under your skin. The triangle itself feels lacking in credibility before the violence and horror can make itself bracingly felt. This chips away at the film to cut itself in, thereby subtracting its grip and command. You wish it could have found more innovative, inspired ways of weaving in the stomach-twisting sensations. Hence, the grudging, bitterness and viperlike energy don’t quite unravel as wickedly and gloriously as you’d like. Monotony is the bigger enemy here, threatening to disrupt any provocation and momentum, defusing anticipation into smithereens. A film like this requires sinewy character growth, a fair share of obfuscation and deceptive hiding, so that it can fling its attack at the requisite time and utterly sweep you off. You crave the film to twist dangerously, which it only blows away into deadening boredom and slovenly writing sorely stripped of edge.