The Netflix Thai film The Murderer, as the name suggests, is about finding the murderer responsible for seven gruesome killings at a farmhouse. Almost an entire family was slaughtered, and Earl Cunningham, a British national, was the prime suspect. Police Inspector Nawat Banluecha was assigned to the case. The inspector was a peculiar man, and he was convinced that Earl was the murderer. It was only Earl’s wife, Sai, who believed that he was innocent. Sai was also at the farmhouse, but she somehow survived. Among the survivors were Sai’s mother and her niece. Why were they spared? And was Earl guilty? If so, why did he murder Sai’s family?
Spoilers Alert
Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?
Earl and Sai traveled to the village farmhouse to visit Sai’s parents. Earl was not well accepted in her family. They believed Sai made the wrong choice by not selecting a wealthy man to spend the rest of her life with. But Sai was in love with Earl, and she would not have wanted her life to be any different. The day they arrived at the farmhouse, the radio announced that it was going to be a stormy night. Earl decided to board up the house to protect it from the storm. Before reaching the farmhouse, Sai discussed with Earl her complicated family situation. June, Sai’s little niece, would be there, and both Earl and Sai adored her. But her mother (Kai’s ex-wife), Tukta, was also supposed to be present with her American husband and his son. Tukta was fighting a legal battle to get June back, and Sai believed that neither Tukta nor Kai would be able to take care of her. To make matters worse, Sai’s ex-husband, Phet, was also expected to be there.
Earl and Sai arrived and greeted Sai’s father, Boonluck. And soon after, Tukta, and her husband, Charlie, paid them a visit. Tukta wanted to take June along with her before the storm; she believed her daughter was not safe there. Tukta abandoned her daughter soon after she was born. Sai could not forgive Tukta for leaving her little girl to fulfill her goals and dreams. Tukta was not ashamed of her past; she searched for stability, and now that she was financially secure, she wanted to be there for her daughter. While Tukta and Sai engaged in a heated argument, their husbands bonded. Meanwhile, we get to know that June’s life has been quite miserable since her mother left. Kai’s parents mistreated her, and they always reminded her that she was nothing but a burden to them. Sai was her only respite, and she waited patiently for her. All June wanted was for Sai and Earl to take her along with them wherever they went. At the time of the murders, June was missing.
According to Inspector Nawat Banluecha, Earl murdered Sai’s family because they found out his truth. He handed Sai an insurance document that Earl had taken out for her. According to the document, if Sai died, he would receive a hefty amount of money. Nawat assumed that Sai’s family got access to the document, and he murdered them to hide his intent. Sai did not believe the police officer, but at the same time, the insurance document made her a little doubtful of Earl.
What Did The Police Assume Had Happened?
The police recovered June’s phone from the fields, and the phone had videos that documented the strange events of the night. We finally get a sense of what went down, and it seems it was all just a bunch of unfortunate events that occurred one after another. Kai and Phet were the ones who got the insurance document, and they wanted Earl to sign it. If Earl died, Sai could get a fortune and share it with her family. They intended to threaten Earl to sign the document. As the two discussed the plan, Earl went downstairs and requested that they stop making noise. Earl went ahead to fix the nail on the window. Boonluck saw Earl’s shadow from a distance, and it looked like he was murdering Kai and Phet. Meanwhile, Kai and Phet drove to grab some more drinks. And while fixing the window, Earl got injured. He started to bleed profusely, and there was blood all around.
When Boonluck noticed the blood, he assumed it was Kai and Phet. Sai realized that it was her husband who was bleeding (she found his tshirt covered in blood), and she was worried. Sai asked Aunt Par to grab the first aid kit from her room in case she found Earl. June was hiding under the bed as she filmed Aunt Par entering the room. Par stole some money from Earl’s wallet, but her attention shifted to the bed when she noticed a body shivering underneath the sheet. She imagined the ghost of her dead husband, and she jumped out of the window in fear. In reality, Earl was shivering in his sleep, and he woke up to Aunt Par’s scream.
Meanwhile, it became clear that Phet had not gotten over Sai. He was determined to get rid of Earl to win her back. As they were driving back from the liquor store, Earl tried to stop the car (this was when Earl woke up after hearing Aunt Par scream; as he walked down, he realized that everyone had left the house) for help, but they continued to drive. Earl jumped into the ditch and he had passed out. When Kai and Phet drove the same route once again, they noticed Earl’s legs on the side of the road. Kai went away to grab a rope to tie Earl, and Phet was all alone with him. Phet loaded his gun and was about to shoot Earl dead, but strangely, the van started to move towards the ditch, and it ultimately crushed him to death. When Earl woke up, he found Phet’s body. He tried to help him, but it was impossible to move the van. He took the gun with him and left. He met Kai soon after, and Kai accused him of killing Phet. The two got into a scuffle, and just to prove how naive Earl was to threaten him with an unloaded gun, he held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Kai did not know that Phet had loaded a gun, and he died as a result.
Boonluck and his wife were afraid of Earl, and he kept a garden fork close at hand in case of an attack. During the ruckus, the couple called the police, and a policeman arrived at the farmhouse. Before reaching Boonluck’s farmhouse, the policeman stopped at Tukta’s place. He was lost, and they agreed to help him reach the farmhouse. On the way, they found Kai’s body, and the policeman collected the gun in Kai’s hand as evidence. Charlie decided to enter the farmhouse after waiting for the policeman for some time. As soon as he entered, Boonluck stabbed him with the garden fork. Tukta followed her husband, and when she realized that Boonluck had murdered Charlie, she threatened to sue them. Afraid of getting caught, Boonluck murdered Tukta as well. After witnessing the murders, Earl ran for his life. He bumped into the policeman and begged him to help. The policeman arrested Earl and brought him to the farmhouse.
In the meantime, Sai returned home (she had gone to find June) and caught her parents dragging dead bodies out of the house. They pretended to be innocent, but Sai could sense that her parents were responsible for the massacre. The policeman arrived at the scene with Earl, and Boonluck blamed Earl for everything. When the policeman went inside the house to check Charlie’s body, Earl told Sai how her parents murdered Charlie and Tukta. The policeman noticed that Boonluck’s feet were covered in blood, which matched the bloody footsteps on the floor. He immediately pointed his gun at Boonluck, and the old man grabbed hold of him. The policeman managed to knock Boonluck out, but his wife got hold of the policeman’s gun and attempted to shoot Earl dead. Before she could pull the trigger, the policeman shot her in the hand with Kai’s gun. She was furious and shot the policeman multiple times, and he collapsed on the ground. Due to the loss of blood, Sai’s mother and Earl were unconscious. Boonluck came to his senses and found his wife holding a gun. To prove her innocence, he placed the gun in Earl’s hand. But there was someone Earl saw that night, and he suffered and died from cardiac arrest. From the videos on June’s phone and her account of the events, the police deduced that the deaths were the result of a series of unfortunate incidents.
Ending Explained: Was June The Main Culprit?
The story of fate is convincing, but during The Murderer‘s ending, we get to know the actual story. June was missing throughout the entire fiasco, and it turns out that she was busy getting things done her way. June had overheard her grandparents wanting to send her off to Tukta, and she was disturbed thinking about it. She was tired of the life she was forced to live at the farmhouse, and she decided to stir things up by using magic mushrooms. How did a little girl get to know about magic mushrooms? Charlie used to sell marijuana and mushrooms, and his son, Jamie, knew all about it. When they came across the mushrooms in the field, June and Jamie decided to give them a try. They spent the afternoon giggling away, and she brought home a bunch of mushrooms with her. She added the mushrooms to the soup, and the entire family feasted on it at dinner, except for Earl and Sai. The mushrooms were the reason why Boonluck imagined Earl murdering Kai and Phet and also saw his ancestor’s spirit. Aunt Par was also hallucinating, which explains why she saw the ghost of her deceased husband. June was in the car with Kai and Phet, and when she saw Phet threatening to shoot Earl, she pulled the hand brake, which led to Phet’s death. In the end, Earl saw June, but he imagined her to be an ancestral ghost, and that ultimately gave him a heart attack.
Whether or not June can be considered the murderer is debatable. She is surely responsible for the visions that led to the entire chaos. She was directly responsible for Phet’s death, but then again, it was a decision she made to protect her uncle, Earl. She had added an ingredient knowing that it could possibly lead to a questionable outcome, but in the end, it was the hatred, anger, and foolishness of the family members that ultimately led to their demise. Even though the police found the magic mushrooms and deduced that it caused hallucinations and, ultimately, the massacre, they did not know who was responsible for adding it. Doubting a little girl seemed unethical, and June was allowed to leave the police station and was handed back her phone. At the end of The Murderer, everything works in favor of June. Sai and Earl reconciled, and we can assume that they will adopt June and Jamie. Sai’s mother survived, but she ran away from the hospital. She had killed a police officer and was afraid of getting punished. June always hoped to become a part of a loving family, and she managed to make that a reality. June’s behavior might become a problem considering she will always try to get things done her way after the success of her plan, though at the moment, it all seems good for the newly formed family.
