Black Cab (2024) Ending Explained – Why did Ian kidnap Anne and Patrick?

Black Cab Plot Summary

Black Cab is a horror thriller story about a cab driver, Ian, who kidnaps a young couple, Anne and Patrick, and takes views on this twisted, confusing, and disturbing journey through a haunted road known as Maybelle Hill. The story starts at a double-date dinner with Anne, Patrick, and their friends Jessica and Ryan.

Anne seems tense, and the complications in the couple’s relationship are evident when Patrick announces that he and Anne are getting married, which makes Anne leave the table. After a quick visit to the restrooms and Jessica closely following to convince Anne, that marrying Patrick is not a good idea, Anne heads out of the restaurant and hails a taxi. She wants to go home alone, but Patrick forces his way into her cab, and they become trapped inside the tinted cab with their chatty and seemingly mentally unstable driver, Ian. 

Why does Ian kidnap Anne and Patrick?

At first, Ian’s intentions are initially unclear, but his chatty character soon reveals his backstory. Ian talks about a ghost that has been haunting his taxi cab, and it is the same ghost that Anne has been seeing glimpses of in her dreams and also in Ian’s car. Ian tells the story of how he and his wife got into an argument one day since she suspects him of cheating.

When she asked for a divorce and said she would take her son away, Ian got angry and had evil thoughts, wanting to kill their son as revenge. He wanted to take the person his son loved most away so he could feel the pain he was going through. Fortunately, he did not let the voice win, so he drove off his anger and sober up.

Ian drove down Maybelle Hill Road, and that was when he spotted a woman on the side of the road. He gave the woman a ride, and she turned out to be a ghost who had taken residence in his car. The ghost could read Ian’s thoughts and take advantage of them. Ian felt ashamed of the thought of killing his son, so he drove to the pub and only went back home after a few rounds. He was supposed to sleep on the couch because of the previous argument with his wife, but he had sounds upstairs in his son’s room.

Ian walked up to take a room, and a horrifying scene awaited him. The ghost had followed Ian back home, hovering over his son’s crib. Apparently, the ghost story is that the woman died in a car crash, but her baby survived, so she wanders the roadside looking and the Maybelle Hill forests looking for another child, and Ian’s thoughts of killing his son made his son her prey. 

Ian is scared of losing his son, so he makes a deal with the ghost to help it find another child so she can leave his son alone. A few days after this incident, Anne entered Ian’s cab after visiting the maternity hospital and unknowingly became his prey. 

What happens to Anne and Patrick?

When he reveals that he is abducting them, Ian hits Patrick with a taser, so he is unconscious throughout the ride from the restaurant to the house in the middle of nowhere. Ian steps out to look for something after he drags Patrick into the house. Anne sees an opportunity and tries to escape with Patrick, who asks her to leave him behind and save the baby since he has been cheating on her with their friend Jessica.

However, Ian comes back before they can escape and kills Patrick. Anne tries to escape the building and reach the car, but Ian soon catches up. He tasers her, and she is unconscious and unaware when he straps her to the back of the cab and drives her into the woods to offer his sacrifice to the ghost. They arrive at the spot, and Ian is about to drag Anne out of the car when she reveals she is not pregnant. 

Although she was pregnant when Ian met her, she had since lost the baby. Suddenly, Anne becomes delirious and confronts the ghost, who blames it for taking her baby. The ghost disappears, leaving Anne frustrated and angry. She starts running through the woods, screaming that the ghost returns her baby. Anne resembles a mirror image of the ghost lady running around the forest, searching for her lost baby. 

What happens to Ian?

Ian tries to escape the ghost after Anne reveals that she is not pregnant. However, he somehow ends up back where he left his still-running cab. He gets back into his cab to drive away. He glances at his back seat and no longer sees the ghost woman. Just then, his phone rings and he is happy that his wife, Elaine, is calling. In his distracted state, he does not see a ghostly image of Anne running from the forest, and he ends up hitting her. However, once he gets out to look, nobody on the road is anywhere in sight around his car. 

How does Black Cab End?

Ian returns to his cab to drive away but does not see Anne’s ghost in the back seat. Now, Anne’s ghost is haunting his cab. 


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