The Twin (2024) ending explained: is the Fetch actually real?

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today, I am going to be explaining the ending to the horror movie The Twin (2024). This is sometimes referred to as The Fetch, as well. There will be spoilers so be warned, let’s get straight into it.

How did Jacob die?

Jacob died after he fell down the stairs while carrying a pumpkin for him and his dad to carve. His shoe laces were untied which lead to him tripping.

Nicholas obviously feels tremendous guilt about this as he wasn’t watching Jacob carefully and he didn’t tie his shoe laces. If he had, Jacob would still be alive. This is the very start of Nicholas’ rapid downward spiral.

Why did Nicholas try to take his own life?

Nicholas was overwhelmed by guilt due to Jacob dying. This lead to long buried mental illness and trauma coming to the surface and causing him to attempt to take his own life.

This, obviously, plays into a larger plot point here and that is the fact that Nicholas was living an idealised life that helped him to bury many of his past issues. When that life collapses with the death of Jacob, all of those problems come straight back to the surface.

Was Nicholas already mentally unwell?

Yes, Nicholas was already mentally unwell at the start of The Twin. Nicholas had a very difficult childhood where he lost his parents and was left to live with his abusive grandmother.

This childhood trauma left him suffering from CPTSD. This is a condition that comes from long term exposure to stressful situations. The symptoms manifest in many different ways including anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and even psychosis.

Nicholas has lived a life filled with feelings of abandonment and fear. He also witnessed the death of his grandmother after she attempted to attack him one night.

Why does Nicholas return to his childhood home rather than his actual home?

Nicholas returns to his childhood home rather than his actual home because Charlie, his wife, needs space from him. She is also concerned that the home will bring back painful memories, and she needs Nicholas to pack up his childhood home’s belongings ready for the house to be sold.

Returning to the very place where Jacob died would be a very bad idea for Nicholas. It would immediately force him to relive his trauma. Moving temporarily into his childhood home will allow him to stay away from those memories while actually helping out by packing the place up.

Why does Nicholas start seeing The Fetch?

Nicholas starts seeing the fetch partly due to the trauma of losing his son and partly due to moving back into his childhood home.

This home is where Nicholas begins to see the Fetch again; a creature from his childhood that he had long since buried. Nicholas believed that the fetch was a creature that haunted his family. It was actually responsible for killing his grandma and it tried to kill him, too.

He has been repressing it for years but the death of Jacob allowed it an opportunity to claw its way back into his mind and into his life.

What is The Fetch?

The Fetch is an Irish folk creature that acts as a supernatural double of a person. The legend goes that seeing your own Fetch is an indicator of your impending death.

The Fetch dates back centuries in Irish folklore. It is said to be an double of a person and seeing one is a horrible sign. In fact, it is said that if you see your fetch, you will soon die. That’s why it is such an ominous character in The Twin. Nicholas sees it and is sure it means he will die shortly just like when his Nan saw it years before.

A more common version of this story that Americans may be familiar with is that of the Doppelgänger. A German folklore being that, again, is seen as a spectral double of the person and is an indicator of impending bad luck.

The Fetch is going to act as a diverse narrative device here. Not only can it be a literal monster to scare the viewer, it can also be a figurative representation of depression and suicidal ideation. Just like Mr Babadook was a monstrous metaphor for grief in The Babadook, the Fetch is a monstrous metaphor for serious trauma.

What did the psychiatrist diagnose Nicholas with?

The psychiatrist diagnosed Nicholas initially with depression and trauma before changing the diagnosis to schizophrenia.

Dr Beaumont doesn’t believe that Nicholas is actually seeing the fetch. Nicholas read the story of the fetch as a child and it scared him. After his grandma pleaded with him for help while suffering a heart attack, Dr. Beaumont believes that, inspired by the stories, Nicholas manifested the idea of the fetch and made it real.

Rather than help her, he believed that his grandma had been replaced by her evil double. He ran to his neighbour’s house and his grandma passed away.

Dr. Beaumont believes that Nicholas suffered a trauma response as a result of Jacob’s death. This trauma response awakened the concept of the fetch back in his mind and that he is hallucinating his own double as a result of schizophrenia.

Does Nicholas’ schizophrenia diagnosis make sense?

No, the schizophrenia diagnosis does not make sense and for some very specific reasons.

Schizophrenia can actually onset rather late in life so that part isn’t particularly egregious. It can lay dormant even into your 30s, only being brought on by a traumatic event. Nicholas losing Jacob would make sense as a catalyst for his schizophrenia.

Some of the symptoms line up, as well. Hallucinations, self harm, disordered thinking, memory loss, disturbed sleep, etc. There’s a big problem with that diagnosis and it’s a great example of Hollywood psychology.

Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Sure, an episode can be triggered but it doesn’t come out of nowhere. In the lead up, sufferers experience a range of negative symptoms that are absolutely crucial for a correct diagnosis (prodromal phase). These include extended periods of sleep disturbance, social withdrawal, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms.

A patient would experience this phase long before hallucinations and disordered thinking became a problem. Even the traumatic event wouldn’t cause the psychosis based symptoms of Schizophrenia to manifest. It would take a long time to become apparent and Nicholas’ stay in the hospital would have resulted in treatment to prevent that.

We are going to see a lot of instances where the writers slip up in this story.

What medication was Nicholas prescribed?

Nicholas was prescribed a variety of different medications including Escitalopram – an SSRI anti-depressant, the anti-depressants Trazodone, and the atypical anti-psychotic Clozapine.

On his first meeting with the psychiatrist, Dr. Beaumont (Robert Longstreet), Nicholas relates how he feels ambushed. He is angry and reluctant to engage in treatment but knows that he must if he wants his wife back.

He is prescribed Escitalopram – an SSRI anti-depressant. This seemed a bit strange to me as I am sure he would have been prescribed in the hospital and already routinely taking medication. One of the main goals of a psychiatric hospital stay is to establish a concrete medication profile and make sure you are stable.

Later in the film, Dr. Beaumont changes Nicholas’ depression and PTSD diagnosis to that of schizophrenia. has two new medications for Nicholas: the anti-depressant Trazadone and Clozapine.

This is where the movie messes up enormously. Clozapine is a “when all else fails” medication for treating schizophrenia. It would never be used as a first option. It’s just too volatile.

As someone with bipolar disorder, I can tell you there are a whole bunch of other anti-psychotics that they will throw at you first. Doctors more commonly prescribe Olanzapine, Risperidone, and even Quetiapine for newly diagnosed patients. Dr. Beaumont claims it will level out Nicholas’ moods, as well which is completely untrue. Its purpose is to bring patients out of episodes of psychosis.

What should Nicholas have been diagnosed with?

Nicholas should have been diagnosed with either psychotic depression or PTSD with Dissociative symptoms.

A diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features (Psychotic Depression) fits Nicholas’s symptoms far more accurately than Schizophrenia. The key difference lies in the nature of the hallucinations. In Schizophrenia, delusions are often bizarre and unrelated to the person’s real life (e.g. believing aliens are controlling thoughts, religious figures are communicating with them).

In Psychotic Depression, hallucinations are “mood-congruent,” meaning they match the person’s feelings of depression and worthlessness. Nicholas isn’t hearing random voices; he is seeing a manifestation of his own self-hatred (The Fetch) that tells him he is guilty and urges him to take his own life.

His break from reality is entirely fueled by his crushing grief and severe depression following his suicide attempt, which is the textbook definition of Psychotic Depression.

Alternatively, Nicholas displays classic signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with Dissociative Features. The catalyst for the entire film is a singular, horrific event: the accidental death of his son.

Nicholas exhibits “Dissociative Amnesia,” a specific symptom where the brain blocks out traumatic information to protect the psyche – in this case, literally erasing the memory of Jacob’s face. This is something I have suffered from extensively due to having bipolar disorder with dissociative symptoms.

He also suffers from intrusive flashbacks (nightmares of the accident) and severe avoidance behaviors. The “Fetch” can be interpreted as a dissociated part of Nicholas’s own identity holding the trauma he is trying so hard to repress. Everything he experiences is a reaction to the accident, not a random neurodevelopmental disorder.

Why did Nicholas need his wedding ring?

Nicholas needed his wedding ring because it is a constant reminder of what he is fighting for – his wife and marriage.

Whenever he doubts himself or feels as though the fetch is beating him, Nicholas reminds himself that he is fighting to fix his marriage. The wedding ring is a constant reminder of that so, when he gets weak, it helps to give him strength. Even though Jacob is gone, Charlie is still there.

Explaining the Ending to The Twin

There’s a couple of key things that factor in when explaining the ending of The Twin. This is a movie that wants to be two different things. It wants to be an actual horror story with a supernatural monster but it also wants to be an allegorical horror story with a metaphorical monster. It’s part supernatural, part psychological, but which one is dominant?

We have the suggestion that, at times, other people are aware of the fetch. Charlie and the doctor seem to see it when Nick is pulled away from them at the end and then they are both, apparently, attacked by it. Director J.C. Doler wants to keep the viewer off base and uses a fair bit of narrative misdirection to do that.

While this is a supernatural story about a demon haunting the protagonist, its main focus is on the horrors of grief. It is also a story about childhood trauma, familial mental illness, and the loss of control that comes with psychosis. That leads us on to an important question.

Was The Fetch Real?

No, I don’t believe the Fetch was real. It was a manifestation of Nicholas’ trauma and fractured psyche that was, essentially, trying to punish him for his son’s death. The fact that Charlie and the doctor see it is a bit of poorly handled narrative misdirection.

The truth is, Doler wants the movie to be a story about trauma with some scary horror imagery but takes a few missteps while attempting some delicate narrative misdirection.

Nick had a bad childhood. His parents were gone and his Grandma seemingly suffered from mental illness and wasn’t a great carer. He has bottled this childhood trauma up and it has been brought back up to the surface by the death of his son. A death which he blames himself for, and even cleaned the blood from which would have been dramatically traumatising.

After the death, Nicholas began punishing himself for the accident. The theme of hereditary mental illness is important here. Just like how some people refer to addiction as “The Demon” or to mental illness as “the black dog” or some other term that avoids directly referencing it.

The fetch was symbolic of Nicholas’ mental illness; a mental illness that has been raging through his family for years. It was passed down from his grandma who had her own fetch. As related by Nick on the night she died.

Was The Fetch real to Nicholas?

The Fetch was real to Nicholas in as much as the hallucinations experienced in conditions with psychosis are real to the sufferer.

If a person with psychosis hears a voice, they believe it is real. If a person suffering from psychosis thinks they are actually well, they believe it. That is the very nature of psychosis – seeing or hearing is believing because the mind won’t let you think otherwise.

Nicholas has a profile that suggests he is suffering from psychosis and trauma related depression.

• Disturbed sleep or even no sleep at all
• Dissociation
• Relentless and disturbing nightmares
• Self harming
• Attempts to take his own life
• He is suffering from both auditory and visual hallucinations
• He is experiencing disrupted thought patterns

The fetch was very real to Nicholas in that it was a manifestation of his grief, his CPTSD, and his unresolved trauma. He actually saw it, it was compelling him to violence, and it was haunting him. At least in as much as it was a symptom of his psychosis.

Does Nicholas’ mental health condition explain him seeing the Fetch?

Yes, all of the symptoms Nicholas experiences as a consequence of his mental health condition explain why he is seeing the Fetch.

Even some of the less obvious bits can be explained by it. For example, he says that he has no memory of trying to take his own life but that is a product of Dissociative Amnesia. A condition which causes memory lapses during traumatic moments. Him having no memory of his episodes of staring out of the window are also likely a result of this.

He also said he had no desire to take his own life but that is often an impulsive act, not a calculated one. Especially when suffering from psychosis. A big component of psychosis is having no awareness that what you are doing is dangerous or damaging. As well as being ruthlessly impulsive. Again, I have experienced this with my bipolar disorder.

Was The Fetch real to the other people in the film?

No, the Fetch wasn’t real to the other people in the film. When they see the Fetch, they are seeing Nicholas; when the Fetch harms them, it is Nicholas harming them, overcome by psychosis.

The fetch was a symbolic representation of Nick’s mental illness. It was, essentially, possessing Nicholas and making him harm himself and others. This lines up with a rare symptom of psychosis; auditory and visual hallucinations that drive sufferers to commit violent acts that would otherwise be against their usual nature.

When Nicholas kills the fetch, he is killing the part of him that is suffering from grief, mental illness, and trauma. He does that by confronting that very grief in a head to head battle in the scene where he fights with the fetch.

Nick hanging the fetch, or the twin, is symbolic of his overcoming the problems he is going through. Him removing the noose and stepping down from the chair is him conquering his trauma.

But why do we see the Fetch choking Charlie?

We see the Fetch choking Charlie because this is a horror movie and we need something scary to happen. It was never the Fetch choking her, it was Nicholas in a moment of delusion.

When Charlie and the Doctor enter the house at the end of the film, they are confronted by Nick, not the fetch. Nick then attacks them before finally experiencing a moment of lucidity, realising what he is doing and stopping. This is when the doctor hypnotises Nick to help him battle the fetch in his mind. In other words, to directly confront his internal, unresolved trauma and grief.

This was an attempt at narrative misdirection. While trying to make the film feel more like a horror movie, Doler decided to opt for an actual physical manifestation of the fetch. I mean, it wouldn’t really be a horror without a monster, right?

Despite the fact that we see the fetch, it was Nick who was attacking them, all along. The fetch is a visual representation of Nick during his psychotic state. Remember how we talked about hereditary mental illness? This exact same thing happened to Nick’s grandmother. She attacked Nick one night and smashed up the house due to an episode of psychosis. Before she could harm Nick, she succumbed to a heart attack.

Charlie saying that this isn’t real as the fetch chokes her is purely because she knows that Nick isn’t in his normal state of mind and is mentally unwell. This is why she doesn’t make much effort to fight back, she knows he won’t hurt her.

Why does Nicholas apologise to the doctor?

Nicholas apologises to the doctor because it was actually him, not the fetch, that had thrown the doctor against the wall causing him to hit his head.

This is the ultimate key to this being the actual explanation and the fetch never being real in the first place. It’s something that that Nick, himself, says. Remember how the fetch had thrown the doctor and he hit his head?

Once Nicholas had finished his battle with the fetch while under hypnosis. Nicholas apologises to the doctor for hurting him. The doctor tells him it’s okay and he will get him back when he least expects it before laughing. This confirms that it was Nicholas, not the fetch, that hurt the doctor and both of them are aware of that. The fetch was never real, it was all in Nicholas’ head.

So Nick was just very mentally ill?

Yes, Nicholas was just very mentally ill and the fetch was a metaphorical representation of that mental illness. When he confronted his trauma, he overcame it and the fetch went away.

With all of the above facts considered and ignoring the one random bit of narrative misdirection. We can make the assumption that Nick was suffering from psychosis due to severe mental illness. He attacked the doctor and Charlie.

Nick then snapped out of it long enough to stop the violence before the doctor hypnotised him. Nick then, along with the help of Charlie, confronted his grief directly by saying goodbye to his son, one last time.

Why is the fetch still in the mirror at the end?

The fetch is still in the mirror at the end of the film as a visual metaphor of how Nicholas will still be haunted by his mental illness. He will still have to work on it every day because his trauma will always be with him.

The Twin is, at its heart, a tender tale of grief, unresolved trauma, and mental illness. The only problem is, in his attempt to misdirect the viewer and to tick the horror quota, he leaned too far into the horror itself and confused viewers.

The constantly reinforced point throughout the movie is that Nicholas needs to confront his grief. He needs to deal with his unresolved trauma and he finally does. It’s always going to be there, though. It’s just waiting for him to slip up which is why he continues attending therapy. This is a simple story of loss told through a horror lens.

Was the fetch real? – The supernatural explanation

This explanation is a lot more simple and it is one for the supernatural horror fans. As I mentioned earlier, this is just hypothetical and I am certain this is not the real ending explained. It’s just a fun theory.

If we are to assume that the fetch was real, then everything you see actually happened. The fetch was something that had been haunting Nicholas since he was a child. It was passed down to him by his Grandma. Nick had managed to contain it but the grief of losing his son brought it back to the surface.

The fetch compelled him to attempt to take his own life but he survived thanks to Charlie’s intervention. The fetch kept pushing Nicholas and weakening him until he could no longer contain it and it escaped his body. The same thing happened with his Grandma years before who had also been battling to contain her own fetch. As she grew physically ill, the fetch escaped and attacked Nick.

When Charlie and the doctor arrived, the fetch attacked them both before Nick regained his strength. He recaptured the fetch and finally defeated it while hypnotised, partly by confronting his grief so that he wouldn’t be burdened by it anymore. Meaning he could focus all of his attention on the fetch.

The fetch looking back in the mirror at the end was a reminder that Nick will always be fighting to contain the fetch. What you see is, very much, what you get. Let’s be honest though, this is elevated horror and that’s not the explanation that counts.

Recapping The Plot: The Twin

The story begins with Nicholas (Logan Donovan), a man already haunted by a traumatic childhood involving an abusive grandmother. Now a father, his life shatters when his young son, Jacob (Tripp Toupal), accidentally falls down the stairs and dies while Nicholas is distracted painting.

Consumed by guilt and grief, Nicholas attempts suicide and is committed to a psychiatric facility. Upon his release, he returns to his childhood home with his wife, Charlie, who insists they live separately while he undergoes outpatient treatment with Dr. Beaumont (Robert Longstreet), an unorthodox psychiatrist with a propensity for hypnosis.

Back in the house where his grandmother died, Nicholas’s mental state deteriorates. He begins hearing voices, suffers from nightmares, and realises he can no longer remember his son’s face. Not only that but Jacob’s features have vanished from all family photos.

Dr. Beaumont diagnoses Nicholas with schizophrenia, theorizing that his trauma has awakened “The Fetch” – an evil doppelgänger from folklore Nicholas read about as a child. The Doctor believes Nicholas manifested the Fetch years ago when his grandmother died, and has now brought it back to punish himself for Jacob’s death.

The Treatment Spirals

Dr. Beaumont’s methods become increasingly aggressive, using forced hypnosis and heavy medication (including Clozapine) to treat Nicholas. During these sessions, Nicholas battles the Fetch, which urges him to commit suicide.

The line between hallucination and reality blurs when Dr. Beaumont discovers physical evidence of the struggle in the form of skin under Nicholas’s fingernails and bruises on his neck that shouldn’t be possible if the Fetch were merely a delusion.

The situation reaches a breaking point when the Fetch seemingly separates from Nicholas’s body, manifesting as a physical entity that attacks Dr. Beaumont and Charlie. Realising the entity wants him dead, Nicholas tricks the Fetch by agreeing to take his own life, reabsorbing the creature into his body. He places a noose around his neck, preparing to jump.

In a last-ditch effort, Dr. Beaumont hypnotizes Nicholas while Charlie describes Jacob’s face to him, helping him reconstruct the memory he had repressed. Inside his mind, Nicholas finally sees his son clearly, tells him he loves him, and finds the strength to “kill” the Fetch.

He snaps out of the trance, saving himself. Months later, a recovered Nicholas finishes his portrait of Jacob. However, as he embraces Charlie, his reflection in the mirror lingers with a sinister expression, implying the Fetch may not be entirely gone.

Thanks for reading!

This is one of those cases where the mental illness allegory is a lot more satisfying.The narrative missteps make it a bit confusing. The truth is, it is hard to do horror with a metaphorical monster without occasionally seeing the monster. It still has to be a horror film at the end of the day and it still has to have scares. Thanks for reading and spending your time at Knockout Horror.

Support the Site Knockout Horror is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Basically, if you click a link to rent or buy a movie, we may earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This helps keep the lights on and the nightmares coming. Don't worry, we will never recommend a movie purely to generate clicks. If it's bad, we will tell you.

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.