Nightmare Alley Ending Explained: How a Beastman is Created? Why is Lilith Cheating on Stan?

Nightmare Alley Ending Explained: Nightmare Alley is a noir genre film, based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. It is therefore no surprise that it follows styles and rules of the genre, even when it comes to summarize the story and tell the epilogue of Stanton’s adventures “Stan” Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a handsome man with a dark past who thinks he has found the path to success and redemption in the world of circus and magic.

Del Toro’s adaptation of the story – which looks more to the novel than the 1940s film – follows Stan in his attempt to “find something he’s finally good at,” putting a real twist on his life. Marked by the loss of his father, Stan is obsessed with the desire to accumulate money and improve his social status. In love with the sweet carousel Molly (Rooney Mara), Stan works with her a mentalist number that allows the two to make the leap in quality and leave the wandering life of the circus. However, Stan’s ambition never ends and he crosses paths with the icy Lilith Ritter (Cata Blanchett), a psychologist and femme fatale who becomes his partner in very shady deals.

The film is also characterized by many allusions that are wisely disseminated during the story and “anticipate” what will happen in the film’s grand finale. This is how – Nightmare Alley ends.

Nightmare Alley Ending Explained: How a Beastman is Created

Over the course of the film, Stanton helps carousel chief Clement “Clem” Hoately (Willem Defoe) abandon a caged and seriously injured man on the street who plans to become the new Beastman of his circus. As they dine, Clem explains to Stanton how to turn a man into a circus attraction.

We need to find a man with alcoholism problems, one for at least two bottles a day – Clem specifies – of those that abound in bad neighborhoods, dormitories, dark alleys. He is attracted by the promise of a temporary job as Beastman, in exchange for accommodation but above all for a daily supply of alcohol. Alcohol is the perfect bait, but the real claw is opium, explains Clem. Every day a drop of opium tincture is dissolved in the bottle of alcohol to give to the man. Once he unknowingly becomes addicted to opium, he is confronted with a hardnosed face, explaining that the time has come to find a real Beastman and hunt him down.

The man, desperate, will be ready to do anything, to endure any humiliation in public so as not to lose the link with an addiction of which he knows the effects and not the causes. Often these men become truly insane, thus functioning perfectly as a freak show.

Stan Hits Rock Bottom

The scam against Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins) ends in the worst way. The tycoon approaches Molly as she impersonates the ghost of the woman he regrets having caused her death and, discovering the scam, begins to threaten her and Stan. In response, the protagonist punches Ezra in the face until killing him. As he and Molly flee in their car, he takes care to run over his bodyguard twice. Molly leaves the car and runs away shortly after.

Stan runs to Lilith to hide, take her money and leave town. The woman says she loves him but goes too far, showing his game. Stan then realizes that he has been duped: there are many wads of money in the bag, but the bills are all one dollar. Stan gets mad and Lilith confirms that she isn’t interested in money, but she doesn’t want to give him her money because he’s an obsession. He then starts the last session, making Stan understand that he has no evidence to frame her as an accomplice to the scams and murders. The woman takes revenge on Stan only to prove to him that she is not “powerless”, as he had first told him during the magic number.

Her version for the authorities will be that Stanton is suffering from a bad case of transference and that she tried to help him. Stan then attacks her and tries to throttle her with the phone wire she just used to call security. She manages to escape by shooting Stanton in the head, hitting him near the ear. When the surveillance arrives and asks her if she is okay, she replies “I will survive”, referring to her nature as a woman capable of facing any danger.

Meanwhile, Stan escapes and hides on a freight train, behind rows of chicken cages. We see him in the shot surrounded by cages: the allusion (hens and cages) is to the Man Beast. Convinced to try whiskey at Lilith’s, Stan is now a major consumer of spirits. Runaway and drifters, he joins a band of vagabonds and ends up giving up his father’s watch in order to drink some alcohol.

Stanton feared he would end up like his father, but his fate is even more dire. When he meets a new circus, he goes to the manager to beg for a job. He discovers that the man has bought Enoch, the infant in spirit with the third eye. Stan chills when he realizes that the man, who treats him like a homeless, drunk and smelly drifter, wants to make him a Beastman addicted to alcohol and opium, by the method that Clem revealed to him long ago. But Stan is desperate enough to consciously accept his fate, so much to say about the terrible role of Beastman.

What Does The Final Sentence of Nightmare Alley Mean?

When Stan says “I was born to be Beast Man”, he realized that the man has hit rock bottom and is so desperate that he consciously accepts his fate. he was afraid of ending up like his father, but his fate is even more terrible: he knows that the head of the club will drive him to madness, giving him alcohol mixed with opium tincture.

Why is Lilith Cheating on Stan?

Lilith isn’t interested in money, but she holds onto Stan’s because she knows he’s obsessed with it. She decides to betray him and manipulate him to show him all his power, which he had liquidated in their first meeting, during his magic show.