‘The Academy Murders’ ending explained, who is the murderer?

Probably the first big premiere of the year 2023 on Netflix will be ‘The Academy Murders’. Based on the book ‘The Pale Blue Eye’ (original title of the film that, well, here we have “translated”) by Louis Bayard, it is a gothic thriller starring detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale). He will be in charge of investigating a horrible crime at the West Point Military Academy in 1830, with the help of a cadet who turns out to be nothing more and nothing less than a fictional Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).

Of course nothing is what it seems, but even for a thriller, the end of Scott Cooper’s film takes several turns in its final stretch. So much so that, despite explaining them to the viewer, there will be several who get lost and end up wondering who did what. Let’s go over it.

‘The crimes of the Academy’: end explained

We soon learn that Cadet Fry did not commit suicide before someone cut the heart out of the corpse, but was hanged against his will after receiving a blow to the head. That leads us to think that the murderer and the thief of the heart are the same person. Part of a note is also discovered which, upon decryption, indicates that someone summoned the cadet at that point at night and they are inclined to think that he was a woman.

The two facts have just been connected when a sheep and a cow also without a heart appear, in what seems to be a satanic ritual. Something that is reinforced when Landor discovers the exact point of the ceremony under the ice storage of the Academy.

With the help of Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall), the protagonists discover a connection between the ritual and the witch hunter Henri Le Clec. Also, that the reason behind it is to achieve immortality. As Landor analyzes Dry’s journal, Cadet Ballinger (Fred Hechinger) is found murdered in a similar fashion, but adding castration to the mix.

Here we all think that the murderer is Poe, who had had fights with the two cadets shortly before his death, and who is also interested in the sister of his partner Artemus Marquis (Harry Lawtey), Lea Marquis (Lucy Boynton), at the same time. Just like the two deceased. Added to this is the escape of cadet Stoddard (Joey Brooks), a friend of the deceased who seems to be fleeing and confirming that the deaths are not random but have to do with his group of friends.

Landor focuses all his attention on the Marquis family and it doesn’t take long to discover that they are behind everything. We first see a portrait of Henri Le Creck in the study of Doctor Marquis (Toby Jones), who happens to be his great-grandfather. Also, they have a copy of your forbidden book. The doctor does not take long to confess that after the ritual, his epileptic daughter improved remarkably, but that he never believed that they would kill for it, they would only steal the heart.

Meanwhile, the enamored Poe lets his romantic air flow (in the 19th century literary sense of the word) and seems to assume he will be the next victim of Lea and her family’s ritual to prolong the life of his beloved. Of course, Landor arrives in time to interrupt everything. After the dispute, both Lea and her brother die under the burning rubble of the basement and, well, case closed. Or not.

‘The crimes of the Academy’: the final twist after the final twist

There is still something pending, and it has to do with the protagonist. Throughout the film we have been told that he is a widower, although we don’t know what his wife died of, and that his daughter Mattie (Hadley Robinson) left never to return. The first is true but the second is not.

It doesn’t take long for Poe to put everything together, from Fry’s note to Landor’s lies, to confront his friend and get him to confess the truth. Mattie was raped by three Academy cadets after a dance. She couldn’t get over the trauma and she ended up committing suicide in front of her father, throwing herself off the cliff.

It was Landor who hanged Fry. Lea and Artemus only took advantage of the fact that he was in the morgue to steal the heart. When they hired him to investigate his own crime, Landor took the opportunity to confuse. It was he who killed the sheep and the cow, and also Ballinger after discovering that it was another of the robbers. Castration, in fact, should have given us a clue, although the heart was to continue misleading everyone. Landor not only used his job to divert suspicion from himself, but also used his position to investigate the culprits behind the rape of his daughter.

The third rapist was Stoddard, who managed to escape. Landor states that he doesn’t have the strength to go after him, but that he expects him to “spend the rest of his miserable life watching his back.” Poe doubts, even when Landor calmly tells him that she knew she would confess to him, and that it is up to him to close the case. Poe, however, chooses to leave Landor and destroy the evidence. Lea is dead, after all, and Landor’s revenge was well motivated.

But Landor isn’t exactly following his lonely happy life. He could go on with his lover, the waitress played by Charlotte Gainsbourg no less. But no, Landor, now at peace, goes to the same cliff from which his daughter threw herself and lets the wind blow a ribbon of his wife. We don’t see Landor throw himself into the void, but the tape leads you to believe that he is “reunited” with his wife and daughter in death.

‘The Academy Murders’ is now on NetflixAlthough we assume that if you have read this, you have already seen it.