Match (2025) Ending Explained - Breaking down the ending and that absolutely disgusting scene

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Did you recently watch the absolutely disgusting Tubi original horror movie Match and wonder just what the hell was going on? Were you so sickened by some of those… scenes that you just had to go and read about it straight away? Well, if that’s the case, you are in luck. Today, I am going to be explaining the ending to Match and maybe even joining in with sharing my revulsion at some of those very scenes.

If you have never read one of my ending explained articles before, it’s pretty simple. I break down the plot and, along the way, I answer some questions about the film before explaining the ending. It’s very easy. I should warn, however, that despite me trying to keep these things tight and to the point, I often get fairly wordy.

You should also remember that this article is not spoiler free. You can check out my review of Match (2025) if you haven’t watched it yet. That will help you decide whether you should even bother. You can then check this article out later for further answers. Okay, let’s take a look at Match (2025) Ending Explained.

Should Paola swipe right or left on Henry?

The movie kicks off with us witnessing a young woman tied to a wheelchair being pushed towards a door. We can, obviously, assume that this innocent lady probably fell into the exact same cat-fishing trap that our protagonist, Paola (Humberly González) is about to fall into.

Paola is, seemingly, down on her luck. She recently came out of a long term relationship with a man called Ryan (Dean Goldblum). She’s now hitting up dating sites to get herself back out there. Early in the movie she is flicking through her phone and it becomes pretty clear that most of the people using the website are either completely lying about their age or are not very attractive.

Paola matches with a man called Edgar but the date turns out to be a total bust. He’s extremely pompous and puts Paola down for working as a server. Another date seemingly takes her to McDonald’s, of all places, and spends the date moaning about people he has met on the app. A third appears to be a complete racist.

Paola finally connects with someone who seems right up her alley. Henry is old fashioned, charming, and rather handsome. Paola’s sister, Maria (Shaeane Jimenez), however is rather suspicious. He seems, frankly, too good to be true. Obviously, Maria’s instincts will soon prove to be right on point.

We, also, briefly learn here, via a face time call, that Maria and Paola’s father is in hospital for a risky operation. The pair want to be there with him but something is going to get right in the way of that, as we will soon see. The song they sing here made me cringe so hard it was physically painful.

Never trust an overly involved parent

Paola decides that the best way to confirm Henry’s authenticity before meeting is with a video chat. Nobody could fake that, after all (…right?). Henry looks just like his photo but the call quickly ends due to technical difficulties. Satisfied that he isn’t hiding anything, Paola decides to accept his invitation for dinner at his house.

Once she arrives at his address, Paola is greeted by Henry’s mother Lucille (Dianne Simpson). Henry is on his way back from the doctors so Lucille invites her in which Paola accepts. Lucille seems warm and friendly, if not a little nuts. She talks up Henry and his extremely huge… heart while sharing some wine with Paola.

Paola begins texting Henry due to his mum’s constant rambling. As she is texting, however, she begins to feel dizzy. That’s when she becomes aware of the fact that the texts are actually going to Lucille. Paola collapses just as she realises what is going on. Lucille has spiked her drink and things are about to get extraordinarily ugly.

Why did Lucille have Henry’s phone?

So the big question here is why did Lucille have Henry’s phone and, well, it is quite simple. This is all a ploy by Lucille herself to get women to come to her house.

Lucille has been catfishing various different girls for quite a long time. Catfishing, for those who don’t know, is a term coined in a documentary made by brothers Nev and Ariel Schulman. It basically means to deceive a potential partner into thinking you are someone you are not. Usually by presenting them with pictures of another, more attractive, person and acting as if they are actually you.

In the titular movie, Nev believed he was dating a hot young woman who he had first interacted with online. She seemed like his perfect girl and very attractive. The only problem was, the pair had never met up or even video chatted.

The film came together as a way to document Nev’s attempts to track her down. When they finally met, the person turned out to be someone completely different who had been using photos of a model to attract Nev’s attention.

The term was coined by the woman’s husband who related a story of how tanks full of cod being transported long distances would have catfish placed in with them. The catfish would nip the cod which forced them to keep moving. This prevented them losing muscle and becoming fatty.

The woman’s husband described his wife as one of life’s catfish there to keep people on their toes and to keep things interesting. That leads us to another question.

Why was Lucille catfishing women?

This is where Match starts to get a little disturbing. It’s going to be getting a lot worse, though, so buckle up. Lucille is catfishing random women because she wants a grandchild. The only problem is, her son, Henry, is actually suffering from a large degree of deformity.

A large degree slightly understates the matter, as well. He is absolutely hideous and looks like the bastard love child of a night of passionate, smelly, love making between Sloth from The Goonies and the entire cast of The Hills Have Eyes.

Lucille seems to think that Henry has no chance of attracting a woman on his own so she does it all for him. She uses pictures of a much more attractive male, who we will be meeting shortly, and does all the interacting on Henry’s behalf, what with him being basically incapable of talking and whatnot.

This way, she can lure the women into the house. The women would likely have their guard down thinking Lucille was harmless. She could then drug them before offering them up to Henry. If they successfully conceived, she would hold onto the woman until the baby is born before killing them and raising the child herself.

Time to meet Henry

Paola is wheeled into a room in a scene replicating the opening minutes of the movie. The entire time, Lucille is reflecting on what a great husband Henry will be. When Lucille leaves, Henry emerges carrying a rose and looking every bit like evolution’s answer to an explosion in a DNA factory.

Henry proceeds to do what he will do a lot in this film: drop his pants. Director Danishka Esterhazy really loves focusing on this dude’s crack. In probably the opposite reaction to what Henry was hoping for, Paola throws up. First dates can be tough, dude. Again, Esterhazy absolutely lingers on every chunk of this.

Henry prat falls on this pile of puke and bashes his head, knocking himself unconscious. Paola manages to escape her restraints and is about to cave Henry’s considerably sized head in before she sees herself in the mirror and realises what she is about to do. She also sees a picture of Henry as a kid and, in a moment of pity, decides that his head is hideous enough without chunks of it missing.

Instead, she escapes the room and searches the house. She steps on a rat trap, of all things, in a moment that would make the Warner Bros blush. All so we can get some nice toe nail peeling body-horror. If you hadn’t guessed, this movie is going for 11 on the gross-out scale. It’s about to get much worse, though. Paola manages to find a safe haven to wrap her foot and take a break.

Maria’s getting suspicious

Maria wakes the next day and texts Paola to find out where she is. It’s the day of their father’s surgery and she knows Paola wouldn’t miss that for the world. Paola replies saying that she is staying for breakfast and had her dates mixed up. Obviously, this isn’t Paola messaging, it’s Lucille who has stolen her phone.

Lucille makes breakfast for the loving couple and takes it to Henry’s room. There, she finds him still unconscious. Something which would suggest major brain trauma and a long road to recovery in real life but, here, is quickly solved by a swift kicking. Maybe doctors should give that a try on coma wards?

The pair head to the bathroom where Paola is hiding to get Henry cleaned up. Paola manages to sequester herself in the cupboard while Lucille bandages him up. Lucille quickly learns that Henry didn’t manage to make the hideous beast with two backs (and one hump) with Paola so there’s no chance that she is pregnant.

We get a lot of exposition here about Lucille’s grandchild plan, as well as finding out that she has him on a high dose of, her words not mine, boner-pills. Henry starts crying and we get a little hint here that Lucille was probably awful to his father, too, as she mentions how he sounds just like him when he cries.

It gets so much worse

Henry is banging his head due to being rather upset at his failings. Lucille calms him with a musical pendant, something which will come up again later on. That’s when things get really really dark and really, really disgusting.

I actually can’t believe I am writing about this in a movie that is, ostensibly, a completely free horror that is advertised prominently on one of the more popular streaming services. Lucille asks Henry whether he has been practicing what she showed him to do when he sees a pretty girl. She then spits on her own hand before pleasuring him, complete with foamy.. well, you know, in a scene that lasts over a minute.

I can’t even begin to imagine how people who stumbled on this movie reacted when they watched this. It probably goes some way to explaining why this has ended up being the most popular review on my website by quite a way.

It’s one of the most disturbing, unnecessary, and frankly weird scenes I have ever witnessed in a movie aimed at a mainstream audience. I would expect it of something completely out there but it’s really surprising given the context. Esterhazy really indulges in it, as well. Lingering on the shot and going ham with the sound effects. This is not a movie to watch with your mum and dad.

Anyways, Lucille gives Henry a walkie-talkie before telling him to act like a big boy. Thus wrapping up one of the worst scenes in a horror movie in quite a long time. Gross!

The hunt is back on

Meanwhile, Maria has set about filing a missing persons report for her sister. The police, however, aren’t willing to help as she is an adult. If she is going to find her, she needs to do it herself. Back at the house, Paola continues searching for a way out as Lucille talks with her therapist about Henry’s woeful love life.

Paola pulls down a curtain, sending the curtain stopper flying forcing her to run and hide before Henry finds her. Entering a pitch black room, she lights a match only to see a corpse in front of her with mutilated eyes. She quickly extinguishes the flame as she hears Henry coming.

Henry bursts into the room but, luckily, Paola manages to hide. We quickly learn that the entire room is full of women’s bodies, one of which Henry holds aloft and dry humps. Man this film is nasty! One of the corpses is, evidently, that of the woman from the beginning of the film.

Henry stares at one of the girls in a lustful way that hints at something even darker than the scene prior. The suggestion being that Henry has been having his way with them over and over. Again, people… This is a Tubi original… A Tubi original! Necrophilia references and incest… A Tubi original!

More grossness!

A cockroach emerges from one of the corpse’s mouths, scaring Paola and prompting her to scream. This alerts Henry and the chase begins. A struggle ensues before Henry throws her to the ground, hitting her and knocking her loopy.

Henry then whips out his absolutely huge dong and sets about doing what his mother told him to do. Luckily, Paola reaches for a rat trap and snaps it shut on his bell-end, bringing a premature conclusion to his excitement.

In an on-the-nose moment of irony, Lucille hears the ruckus before making a reference to disgusting torture horror movies and how she can’t watch them… Nice job guys, nice job! Lucille ends her therapy session before relating that Henry has another date on the hook. We will be meeting her shortly.

The scene now flicks back to Henry who is having some degree of difficulty freeing himself from the rat trap. Again, this is horrifically indulgent. I’m not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted. When Lucille checks in on him, he tells her that he was unable to finish with Paola. She then instructs him to kill her when he next sees her as she already has the next girl on the hook.

Time to meet Natalie

The next girl on the hook is Natalie (Nikita Faber). We briefly see her chatting with Lucille, again pretending to be Henry, who is instructing her to pleasure herself. Again, this is pretty indulgent and designed to make you feel a bit uncomfortable. They are planning to meet up for dinner at Henry’s house later on. The exact same scenario that Paola encountered.

The funny thing here is that Natalie has been kind of catfishing Henry. She is using old pictures where she is much slimmer, another thing that is quite common in the online dating scene. Match’s satirical elements are, at least, fairly amusing, if nothing else.

Paola continues her search for an escape route, closely followed by Henry who has now retrieved a nail bat. She stumbles into another room (how many rooms does this average suburban house have? It’s like a museum) only to find a nursery complete with a cot and lots of baby supplies. Obviously, Lucille is very much prepared for life as a grandparent.

Paola falls asleep from exhaustion and has a nightmare. She dreams about finding a baby in the cot only for her dad to appear before she suddenly wakes and realises that it didn’t actually happen. Resuming the search around this labyrinthian maze she, once again, sees Henry coming. Before she can be caught, she is pulled into a room.

Here’s Eli and who the hell is Eli?

The person who pulled Paola to safety is Eli. Eli is actually the person who was used in the pictures that Paola was catfished with. He’s played by Luke Volker who you might know from the South African horror movie Clickbait: Unfollowed (2024).

Eli is Henry’s brother and Lucille’s other son. This raises a bit of a question, right? Why didn’t Lucille just use Eli to give her a grandchild? After all, he’s handsome enough to attract women. Well, Eli is sterile and can’t actually conceive a baby. Instead, she uses Eli’s pictures and forces him to pretend to be Henry in the video chats to help convince the girls to come meet him.

Eli is going to tell Paola a bunch of lies, though. He will say that he was catfished by Lucille and, when he arrived, he had his feet cut off by her. She then forced him to play along under the threat of death. It will be a little while before we actually learn the truth. Eli has a computer in his room but the router is only switched on when Lucille wants him to video chat for her.

Paola sets about finding a way out for them both. Meanwhile, Maria is contacting Paola’s ex-boyfriend to help her search for Paola. Remember, she knows exactly where Paola was heading for her date.

Maria’s here to help

Eli offers to make a lot of noise to attract Henry’s attention so that Paola can search for a way out. This seems to work really well, allowing Paola to retrieve a wheelchair so that she and Eli can escape together.

Meanwhile, Maria has arrived at the house and, while searching, sees Lucille through the window holding Paola’s phone. Paola’s ex-boyfriend, Ryan, arrives moments later, jump scaring Maria in the process. The pair skulk around a bit before hiding as someone is about to arrive at the door.

Natalie is here for her date and to say Lucille is shocked would be an understatement. Natalie looks nothing like her glamorous pictures but she is pretty hilarious all the same. Lucille and Natalie’s interactions are really quite funny as Lucille grills her about her age and weight.

In another disgusting scene, Lucille’s offers Natalie her handkerchief after she sneezes. It’s the hanky that Lucille used to clean up after helping Henry relieve himself. Natalie opens it up to find a mixture of blood and err other bodily substances. Absolutely gross.

Ryan and Maria barge in

Lucille is about to inject Natalie with something when Ryan and Maria appear at the door looking for Paola. Initially, she believes they are there for Natalie and makes some rather comical yet cruel comments about her appearance. They tell her they are there for Paola and barge their way in.

Lucille grabs Maria and attempts to inject her with the sleeping agent but Natalie appears behind her, knocking her unconscious. Maria wants to find Paola and Natalie is completely along for the ride. She wants a cool story to tell people when she gets back home. I love Natalie in this film, we needed way more of her.

The group split up before reuniting to head down an elevator. While searching, Maria is knocked out by Paola who, obviously, wasn’t expecting to see her and thought the creaking floorboards were due to Henry coming down the hall.

We have a few moments of everyone working out what the hell is going on. Along with a comical moment where Natalie thinks the man of her dreams is right there, even though it’s actually Eli. Only for the real Henry to suddenly appear.

Ryan says that he will handle it, allowing the others a chance to escape. Unfortunately, handling it means not even getting a single hit in on Henry before his face is caved in with the nail bat. Sorry Ryan!

From bad to worse

As the group try to make their escape, Natalie opens a door only to somehow be greeted by Henry who pushes his fingers through her eye sockets. Dammit! Best character gone.. This movie sucks. Again, Maria is still out cold which is causing no small amount of problems.

While Paola picks her up, Eli attacks Henry to give them time to escape. Henry, seemingly gives up on hurting Eli so he can continue the pursuit of Paola and Maria. When he gets to them, Maria’s phone rings and it just so happens to be the song the pair sang for their father earlier in the film.

This calms Henry who picks the phone up to listen. The person calling is their father. Paola asks him how the procedure went and he tells them he is okay and they don’t need to worry about him.

Eli reappears completely unhurt which is going to need just a little bit of explaining. Paola’s father tells her that he wants her to meet new people. She tells him she has and that he is handsome and kind. Obviously, Henry thinks she is talking about him and is delighted, only for her to point out that he is also an amputee. She’s actually referring to Eli and this sends Henry into a rage.

Maria wakes up and the pair sing together with their father which, once again, calms Henry. Maria then smashes him in the back with the nail bat. This gives the group a chance to escape. They head down the elevator and head through the house.

Maria… Noooooo!

When the group enter a room Maria is shot by Lucille who has been laying in wait. This is when we get the exposition dump about Eli. He refers to her as Lucille and she responds by asking “Is that any way to talk to your mother?“.

As we talked about earlier, Eli is Lucille’s son and Henry’s brother. He was born with no feet and suffers from male infertility. He was supposed to actually be helping Lucille and Henry and was fully aware of the plan. His job was to act as Henry in the video calls and also to relay Paola’s position in the house to her. This is why Henry didn’t hurt him earlier.

Eli started falling for Paola, though, and went off script. Meanwhile, Maria, who has been wounded but not fatally, has been looking for weapons. She suddenly pushes Eli’s wheelchair into Lucille who shoots him dead in response. She grabs a bottle of red wine and smashes it over Lucille’s head.

The gun goes flying and Maria wrestles with Lucille while telling Paola to get the gun. Paola is too stunned by Eli being shot, however, which allows Lucille to reach for the wine bottle. She slices Maria’s throat with it in another shocking moment, this time for a completely different reason. Maria dies a grisly death. Another great character killed off.

Paola finally fights back

Paola and Lucille struggle for the gun. Apparently Lucille has old woman strength because she wins, throwing Paola to the ground. Lucille holds the gun up to her before giving a bit of a villain monologue.

All of a sudden, Henry appears looking pretty beat up. Enraged, Lucille begins kicking Paola because of the damage she did to Henry. She goes over to Henry and instructs him to have his way with Paola because she is weak and won’t put up a fight.

He is reluctant so she becomes aggressive with him. Henry fights back resulting in her pointing the gun at him to which he responds to by snapping both of her arms. He then throws her to the ground before taking his rage out on her for the years of physical, sexual, and mental abuse. He gestures to Paola to leave which she does before Henry crushes Lucille’s head. So.. Henry is the hero of the film?

The movie wraps up with Paola at the hospital with her dad who survived his operation. Ryan and Natalie are both dead having been killed by Henry, Maria was killed by Lucille, as was Eli, and Paola is the only person who survived. Back at home, Paola deletes her dating apps.. It’s a bit too late now but, whatever.

So… What Was the Point of That?

And… everybody just take a second and exhale. What a legitimately grim, grimy, and utterly disgusting ride that was. Some of the scenes here really are up there with the worst I have seen in a mainstream movie.

Anyway, to put a bow on this… “hero” is a strong word for Henry. I suppose it is actually somewhat possible to feel some sympathy for him. He was an abuse victim, after all. With that being said, he did save Paola from his (somehow even worse) mother, Lucille.

Our final girl, Paola, escapes, having (justifiably) deleted her dating apps for good. Everyone else? Dead. Maria, Ryan, Natalie, Eli, and Lucille all meet a grizzly end. It’s actually quite rare for horror movies to feature such a bleak ending.

The final message is pretty much ‘dating is hell,’ but with added incest, necrophilia, and rat-trap-based injuries. Match (2025) is a film that really delights in being as repellent as possible, and it absolutely succeeds when it comes to that.

Our Final Verdict on ‘Match’

Honestly, explaining this ending has made me feel like I need a shower. This film is… a lot. But was it good? Was all that gross-out-horror worth the runtime?

I had a lot of feelings about that. If you want to know our final verdict (and see if we’d ever recommend putting yourself through this if you haven’t already), you should check out our full review of Match (2025).

This movie has inspired me to come up with a list of disgusting horror films to follow this up with, too so keep them peeled for that. If you are looking for something new in the meantime, take a look at our Horror Movie Lists section. Thanks for reading and spending your time at Knockout Horror.

Disclaimer: Images, posters, and video stills used in this horror ending explained article are the property of their respective copyright holders. They are included here for the purposes of commentary, criticism, and review under fair use. Knockout Horror makes no claim of ownership and encourages readers to support the official release of all films discussed.