Leave Plot Summary
Currently streaming on Shudder, Leave is the feature film debut of director Alex Herron. It tells the tale of a young woman named Hunter White (Alicia von Rittberg) who, as a baby, was abandoned in a cemetery by her mother.
After discovering the possible identity of her mother, Hunter travels to Norway where the woman apparently resides. Soon after her arrival in the country, Hunter discovers information about a diary that could shed light on the reasons why her mom abandoned her.
Does Hunter discover the truth about her mother? Keep reading to learn more about this chilling new horror movie:
How does the movie begin?
Leave begins with a 911 call which is picked up by police officer Raylan White. He is told to go to a cemetery where a baby has been abandoned. Upon his arrival, he discovers the child wrapped up in a blanket that is adorned with demonic symbols. Hanging around the baby’s neck is what appears to be a satanic cross. At this point, we don’t know the child’s real name.
Raylan takes the baby back to his home and raises her as his own, along with his other sons. He names the child Hunter but her real identity is revealed later in the movie.
What happens to Hunter?
As an adult, Hunter has a yearning to find out the truth about her abandonment and her real mother.
When looking through boxes in her adoptive father’s home, she discovers the blanket and the cross, and understandably wants to know why she was found with these items on her body.
In her search for the truth about her past and her mom, Hunter takes a DNA test that reveals she is 99% Scandinavian. She begins the search for her mom online and comes across a web page featuring a Norwegian Black Metal singer named Cecilia.
Hunter comes to the assumption that Cecilia must be her mother and decides to travel to Norway to meet her.
Does Hunter find Cecilia?
After taking a plane from Logan International Airport, Hunter eventually arrives in the city of Bergen in Norway. Almost immediately, strange things start to happen.
When using a ticket machine, a shadowy figure appears behind her but quickly disappears. After checking into a hotel, the figure appears for a second time outside of Hunter’s room. She senses its ghostly presence but there is no sign of this mysterious apparition when she opens the door.
Who is this figure? This is something we don’t find out until later in the movie.
Hunter finds out that Cecilia is performing at a local bar so goes along to see her. When Cecilia asks if she is looking for somebody, Hunter is initially reluctant to tell her the truth so doesn’t reveal her identity straight away.
After leaving the bar, Hunter heads back to the hotel and is followed by a man.
Hunter goes to bed but is woken by a sound outside of her room. When she investigates, she sees that the corridor is on fire. After returning to her room, she is then confronted by a strange woman. Thankfully she is dreaming, but when she wakes up, she realises the man who followed her is in the hotel. He chases her into a bathroom where she attacks him with deodorant.
It turns out that the man is friendly and is a friend of Cecilia. He followed her to find out why she had an interest in the performer. Hunter reveals the truth and together with the man, heads back to the bar to meet the woman who could be her mother.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Cecilia isn’t Hunter’s mom after all. But after the two start to get to know each other a little better, Cecilia realises Hunter is the daughter of Kristian, her former bass player, and his partner Anna, a groupie who used to hang out with the band.
Where are Anna and Kristian now?
According to Cecilia, Anna disappeared with Hunter shortly after giving birth to her. This caused Kristian to have a mental breakdown with the belief that Anna had murdered the child.
Kristian looked for Anna and after he supposedly found her, he apparently locked her in a church and killed her after setting fire to the building. He was given 21 years in prison for Anna’s murder but when he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, he was sent to a mental hospital.
Does Hunter visit Kristian?
Yes, she visits the hospital and tells the staff that she wants to meet with Kristian because she is a journalism student doing a story on Norwegian Black Metal.
The two meet and Hunter keeps up the pretence of being a journalist. When she presses Kristian for information about his past, he talks about Anna and tells Hunter that she cried when she realised she had given birth to a girl. After disappearing, she called Kristian to say that she had ‘taken care of it,’ which in Kristian’s mind meant that she had killed the child.
During the conversation, Kristian recognises the cross on Hunter’s neck. It’s the cross that she was found with after being abandoned, and after seeing it, Kristian becomes angry and demands to know her real identity. Hunter isn’t able to tell him as the orderly then takes the upset Kristian out of the room.
What does Hunter do next?
Hunter returns to Cecilia and asks her about the shawl and the ‘satanic’ cross. She finds out the cross is a ‘wolf’s cross’ from Norse mythology, which apparently is a very common trinket in Norway.
Cecilia also mentions that Anna kept a diary. She believes the diary is with Anna’s family and lets Hunter know their location.
Hunter journeys to the family and meets Anna’s aunt Lillian. She also meets Olav, Lillian’s husband, and his brother Torstein, who is Anna’s father and Hunter’s grandfather. She also learns of Stian, Lillian’s son who lives a short while away.
Hunter is invited to stay at the house. She sleeps in Stian’s old room but while she is asleep, the shadowy figure makes another appearance.
Hunter is woken by the sound of a key falling from the locked door of her room but when she opens the door, she sees nothing. She goes back to bed and shortly after hears heavy breathing and a strange voice next to her. Whatever or whoever is making these sounds is nowhere to be seen.
Does Hunter learn more about her family?
The family appear to be very religious, especially Torstein, Hunter’s grandfather. After the family says grace at the evening meal, Hunter learns of Lillian’s daughter who went missing a few years before. Apparently, the girl was very close to Anna.
During the meal, Stian jokingly says his mother wished he was a girl when he was born. Lillian laughs this off but Stian’s comment seems to affect Torstein, who then decides to retire for the evening.
The next day, Hunter visits Torstein’s home, where he quizzes her about her religious beliefs. She asks about Anna’s diary but he denies its existence.
She later meets up with Stian, who tells her the family has a dark past. Apparently, his grandmother (Torstein’s wife) was a “domineering bitch” who died when she fell down the stairs. According to Stian, one of his aunts slit her own wrists while taking a bath and killed herself. He goes on to say that when he was 4, his older sister disappeared and presumably died. And years later, his mother (Anna) became a Black Metal groupie and was burned alive in the church.
Hunter realises that the people who met an untimely death were all women. Stian tells her this makes her “the last living girl.”
Does Hunter find the diary?
Stian takes Hunter back to Torstein’s house and believing it to be empty, she breaks in through a window. She eventually finds the diary in the attic but when flicking through it, she hears Torstein’s car outside.
Moments later, the door opens but it’s not Torstein. Instead, it’s the burnt body of a woman who reaches for the cross around Hunter’s neck. Hunter has visions of the woman burning alive in the church and following this disturbing sight, she falls down the attic stairs.
When Torstein finds Hunter, he is concerned for her at first. But when he notices she has the diary, he angrily takes it from her and tells her that she is no longer welcome at the family’s home.
Hunter says her farewells to the family but she’s not ready to give up on the diary just yet. After meeting up with Stian at his houseboat, the two of them return to Torstein’s house when it is empty.
After finding the diary a second time, Hunter notices Stian stealing money. She confronts him and this causes him to get angry. He attacks Hunter and tries to strangle her but when she hits him over the head with something, he falls back, hits his head on a nearby countertop, and falls to the floor in a bloody puddle.
Lillian and Olaf arrive at the house looking for Torstein. They don’t find him but they do find the body of their son. Hunter runs out of the house before she is seen and takes Stian’s car.
Where does Hunter go?
Hunter returns to Cecilia and asks her to translate the diary which has been written in the Norwegian language.
Following the translation, Hunter learns it wasn’t written by her mother but by her mom’s friend, who we later learn was Lillian’s daughter.
After this surprising discovery, Hunter visits Kristian again and tells him the truth about her identity. He warns her not to return to Anna’s family house as there is evil there. He also tells Hunter that Anna didn’t want to keep the baby because she had given birth to a girl (the significance of this is revealed later).
Just as Hunter exits his room, she thinks she hears Kristian say “leave.” However, he is calling her “Liv,” which she discovers is her real name. We later learn that Liv was also the name of Lillian’s daughter.
Hunter tells Kristian that she needs to go back to the family’s house in search of answers but he tells her they can’t be trusted.
Does Hunter return to the house?
Yes. She goes back to Torstein’s house and enters through the window again. She discovers a secret wall behind a portrait with a key inside. She uses the key to enter a locked room that is filled with old papers and boxes and what appears to be an old blood stain on the floor.
As Hunter explores the room, she discovers another door and is able to get inside using the key she found. Inside is a woman chained to a bed.
Who is the woman?
It’s Anna – she isn’t dead after all!
The two are glad to see one another but when they hear a noise outside, Anna tells Hunter to run.
Before she can get away, Olaf enters. Hunter is able to take him down with the help of Anna but Torstein then enters the room and hits Hunter over the head. While unconscious, she has a vision of the burnt woman. During her blackout, she also has a flashback vision of Torstein who tells his wife that Satan has claimed Liv’s soul but there is still hope for Anna’s soul. We then see Torstein take Liv to the church and set fire to it.
So, it wasn’t Anna that burned to death in the church. It was Liv! And it wasn’t Kristian that burned down the church, but Torstein.
When Hunter regains consciousness, she realises Torstein has tied her to a chair. He tells her that women are sinful and that he wants to cleanse Hunter of evil. He burns her with a red-hot poker and tries to cast Satan out of her.
Before he can do further damage, there is a noise outside of the room. Olaf appears with a bloody head and behind him is Kristian, who likely attacked Olaf. Kristian and Torstein grapple with one another and off camera, Kristian knocks him out.
Kristian frees the women and tells Anna that he didn’t know she was trapped in the house. But during their reunion, he dies from the wounds that were inflicted on him by Torstein.
Do Hunter and Anna escape?
The two women flee from the house but during their escape, Anna becomes exhausted and tells Hunter that she can’t go on. Shortly after, Torstein appears with an axe in his hand and he manages to knock Hunter out. When she regains consciousness, she calls him a coward and hands him the cross. At this point, the ghost of Liv appears. Torstein sees the ghost and while he is distracted by the spectral figure, Hunter attacks him with the axe.
Torstein is killed by Hunter and this causes Liv’s ghost to disappear, presumably because she is at peace now that justice has been served on the man who killed her.
Anna tells Hunter that she is sorry for abandoning her. She tells Hunter that she couldn’t take her back to the family in Norway so took her to the cemetery, where she waited in the woods until the police discovered her infant body.
Shortly after, the movie ends with a scene at a hospital where Anna is receiving treatment. Hunter’s adoptive father arrives and they have a happy reunion.
Why was Hunter wrapped in a demonic-looking shawl?
At the start of the movie, it could have been assumed that Hunter was the child of a satanic cult because of the sinister-looking blanket she was wrapped in. As we now know, the answer is far less sinister. The blanket belonged to Anna and as she was a fan of Black Metal, this explains the satanic markings that were inscribed on it.
Did Lillian know that her daughter had died?
We don’t think so. Olaf likely told Lillian that Liv had disappeared instead of telling her the real truth – that Torstein had killed her.
Why did Anna abandon Hunter?
She abandoned Hunter because she was fearful of what the religious men in the family would do to her.
What happened to the other women in the family?
The logical assumption is that they were killed by Torstein (possibly with Olaf’s involvement).
Torstein believed women were sinners so his deranged beliefs likely caused him to murder some of the women in the family. As such, his wife didn’t accidentally fall down the stairs as she was probably pushed by Torstein. He may have killed the aunt who was found in the bathtub but it’s also possible that she killed herself to escape from Torstein and any other crazed men in her household.
Torstein killed Liv too but decided to spare Anna because he believed her soul could have been saved.
Read More: Leave Movie Review