The Owners Ending & Who Kate REALLY Is Explained

Warning! Major spoilers for The Owners

2020 horror movie, The Owners riffs on the classic home invasion movie and leaves behind some major questions for the  audience to unravel with its rather confusing ending. Starring Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams, who also lent her talents to The New Mutants in 2020, The Owners is full of unexpected twists that keeps the audience guessing until the credits roll.

Director Julius Berg knows how to subvert audience expectations with several key points in the movie that are the cinematic version of a magician’s sleight of hand. With a home invasion movie, a horror movie sub-genre that is growing in popularity, a single-location setting and small cast are tasked with creating thrills and scares with a very simplistic premise. In The Owners, a group of young people are staking out a large, stately home in the country that belongs to Dr. Huggins (Sylvester McCoy) and his wife, Ellen (Rita Tushingham). Terry (Andrew Ellis) is familiar with the property, as his mother works for the Huggins’ as a housekeeper. Terry is accompanied by Gaz (Jake Curran), who is something of a loose cannon, and Nathan (Ian Kenny), who is a bit more level-headed and focused on getting what they came for with as few hiccups as possible. Gaz and Nathan are the masterminds of the heist, and Nathan’s girlfriend Mary (Williams) accidentally gets taken along for the ride.

The Owners cleverly subverts many of the tropes associated with the home invasion sub-genre, taking until the mid-point of  the movie to truly reveal what Dr. Huggins and his wife are playing toward. Despite the movie’s title, it’s not immediately clear that the owners are truly the prime source of danger; there’s a mysterious safe, Gaz goes off the rails, Terry appears to be in the midst of a psychological breakdown, and Nathan seems to want to call the whole thing off. Plus, Mary reveals to Nathan that she’s pregnant, which adds another layer of high-stakes to the situation, which is already something of a powder keg. It all leads in to The Owners‘ ending, which leaves the fates of the survivors up in the air, to an extent, and reveals a much darker secret about the Hugginses.

What Happens In The Owners’ Ending?

Nathan is dead, Mary is dead, Gaz is dead, and the only people left standing are Dr. Huggins, Ellen, and Terry. While this ending is certainly not what most viewers might have expected, as Maisie Williams was undoubtedly the biggest draw for the movie, her final girl status was challenged when Terry fatally shot her right before she was about to escape the Hugginses house. For much of The Owners, it was teased that maybe Dr. Huggins and Ellen were intrigued by Mary. Dr. Huggins spoke of their daughter, Kate, who appeared to have birth defects or other medical issues that led to her being on crutches—ominously, it was discussed how Kate went missing. This could have been the catalyst that sent a previously good doctor and his wife—who is clearly suffering from some kind of dementia—into disarray. Or, alternately, they killed her and are actively seeking a replacement.

However, they don’t seem disappointed about Mary’s death, even though earlier they seemed to care very much for her unborn child, though perhaps not as much about her. Really, Mary was the only innocent party in the entire movie, a prime example of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She even exhibits a sense of goodwill toward de-escalating the situation after Gaz tries to force Nathan to cut off Ellen’s finger and later threatens her with a circular saw. Mary is the one who kills him, and Dr. Huggins and Ellen seem impressed and maybe even a little grateful. Nathan and Terry seem shocked that she’d have that in her, but given that Gaz sexually assaulted her earlier in the movie, it’s not as much of a surprise to the audience. While Mary was set up to be the movie’s final girl, as she was the only one who showcased any real heroism, her death was the ending’s second biggest twist.

Who Is Kate? (& Who Is Jane)

Though the final scene of The Owners takes place outside of the home, in the Huggins’ garden where they have a brief conversation with Jean (Stacha Hicks), who laments about her missing son—Terry—the biggest question is raised just before. After Mary’s death, it seems like a sure thing that Terry will be next, and the final victim. However, Dr. Huggins and Ellen reunite Terry with his ex-girlfriend, Jane (Williams), whom they refer to as “Kate”. This is a clear reference to their daughter, Kate, who disappeared. It also raises the question as to whether the first “Kate” was actually their daughter, or if they are constantly looking for replacements to a different daughter that they lost long ago. It’s more likely that Jane is their first replacement, although this sort of premise has been played with in horror movies before, in films such as House on the End of the Street.

Another interesting twist in The Owners is that Jane is Mary’s twin sister. This effectively suggests that Mary was probably never going to make it out of the house alive, as they already had the stand-in that they needed. Mary really was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Terry’s choice to kill her—even though she thought she was saving his life—was what likely earned him a great reward from Dr. Huggins and Ellen, and a disturbing one at that.

What Happened To Terry?

Terry seems to be a new acquisition for the Hugginses; he proved his loyalty to them by not harming them, by killing Mary, and since he’s the reason why Nathan and Gaz targeted the house in the first place, it’s possible he knew what was going to transpire the whole time. On several occasions, he spoke candidly to Mary about his relationship with Jane and how he wished they could get back together. It’s possible that Dr. Huggins spoke to him and convinced him to kill Mary when Mary had Ellen hostage in the kitchen. Dr. Huggins said something to him, but it was purposefully inaudible.

This is probably where they struck a deal, and where Terry knew that he had to convince Mary to save him, to bring him to the ambulance, as he was no longer able to walk on his own since the Hugginses drugged him with a fast-acting paralytic. Mary wasn’t expecting to be betrayed, and since she was a good person, she didn’t feel right about leaving him behind. It put her in a vulnerable position and allowed Terry to get the upper hand, since he likely wouldn’t have been able to do so physically in his current state. Since he killed Mary, Dr. Huggins allowed him to reunite with Jane; she seemed to be a reward for his loyalty, in a sense. The final scene of The Owners shows the Hugginses burying the other three bodies—Nathan, Gaz, and Mary—in their garden and reassuring Jean that Terry will be fine. Jean may never get to see her son again, unless they decide to “adopt” her, too. Ultimately, the thriller’s psychological horror elements serve to deliver what horror movies in this genre should do: leave questions and prompt a greater discussion, even with a simple premise.

About The Author

Jack Wilhelmi
(581 Articles Published)

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Jack Wilhelmi is the horror features editor at Screen Rant, and has been with the site since 2019. He is a lifelong fan of the horror genre, and loves any excuse to discuss genre-related topics, since none of his friends dare challenge him in horror trivia. He has been published on the independent horror blog Morbidly Beautiful, and has covered major genre film festivals such as Cinepocalypse in Chicago. He has also served as a judge for the Ax Wound Film Festival.

In his free time, he is a devoted dog dad to a high-spirited rescue pup named Peter Quill and enjoys volunteering with various animal rescue organizations. Jack likes to travel and explore dark tourism-related and other various haunted locations. He enjoys studying psychology, the paranormal, and will watch literally any schlocky B-movie on the planet for a laugh.

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