Ratsasan Meaning and Ending Explained: Who Is the Killer, and Who Is Christopher?

Spoiler warning: this page gives away the killer, the motive and the ending of Ratsasan (Tamil, 2018, directed by Ram Kumar).

The short answer

The killer is Christopher, a man who has the rare condition Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome (progeria), which makes the body age very fast. As a boy he was a gifted pianist and magician, but he was isolated and bullied at school. When his only friend Sophia turned down his love because of how he looked, and his classmates humiliated him, his mother Mary Fernandez killed Sophia in a rage.

Both were arrested and later presumed dead in an accident. In fact Mary died, and Christopher survived and kept killing schoolgirls while dressed as his late mother, performing as a magician called “Annabella George” at schools to pick his victims. Arun Kumar, an aspiring film director turned sub-inspector, tracks him down, fights him and kills him.

The final scene sees Arun finally invited to direct the film about a psychopath he always wanted to make.

The title

“Ratsasan” is Tamil for “demon”. The film’s question is who the real demon is: the killer, the paedophile teacher Inbaraj who is wrongly blamed, or the people who bullied a child until a murderer was the result.

The story, step by step

1. The opening. Two old men find the body of a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, Samyuktha, brutally murdered. The film then cuts to Arun, who wants to direct a thriller about a psychopath and is pushed by his family into a police job through his brother-in-law Doss, a circle inspector.
2. Arun the sub-inspector. He lives with his sister Kokila, Doss and their little daughter Ammu. Through Ammu’s school he meets her teacher Viji and her hearing-impaired niece Kayal, and becomes close to both.
3. The pattern. Arun is assigned to the abduction of a schoolgirl, Amudha. He notices a mutilated doll left at her house, matching Samyuktha’s murder, and proposes a serial killer. His superior, ACP Lakshmi, dismisses the idea until Amudha’s body is found. A hearing-impaired student, Meera, is the next victim.
4. The wrong man. Police pick up Inbaraj, a teacher at Ammu’s new school who is exposed as a child abuser. He admits to abuse but denies murder. During an escape attempt he holds an officer at gunpoint and Arun shoots him dead.
5. Ammu. That night Ammu is taken from her own birthday party and found dead in a car boot, proving Inbaraj was not the killer. Arun and Doss hide the truth from Kokila for the time being.
6. The piano clue. Suspended for shooting Inbaraj, Arun carries on unofficially. A piano melody on Meera’s recovered hearing aid leads him to a touring magician, Annabella George, who performed at every victim’s school. He deduces she uses the shows to choose her targets. The police place the next likely target, a girl called Sanjana, under watch, but the killer still manages to take her. Arun’s team stops the vehicle and rescues Sanjana, but the killer escapes.
7. The backstory. A retired policeman, Rajamanickam, tells Arun that Annabella George is an alias of Mary Fernandez, whose son Christopher has progeria. This is the history above: the bullying, the rejection by Sophia, Mary killing Sophia, the arrest, the accident everyone thought killed both. Rajamanickam is killed before he can say more.
8. The reveal. At the crime scene Arun works out that Mary died in the accident and the killer is Christopher, who has been dressing as his mother. Christopher ambushes Viji and takes Kayal, then kills Officer Venkat and the forensic doctor Dr Nandan to remove anyone who could identify him.
9. The fight. Using forensic clues Arun reaches Christopher’s hideout. After a brutal fight, Arun kills him and saves Kayal, though he is badly hurt. The media reports the case closed, and producers approach Arun to direct a feature on a psychopath.

Why a killer who looks like a child

Progeria makes Christopher’s body frail and old while his emotional life is still that of a hurt teenager. The film uses this contrast in two ways. It helps explain why nobody suspects a killer who, through disguise and careful planning rather than brute strength, hides behind his late mother’s identity, and it makes the audience feel for a character who does monstrous things.

The piano, the magic tricks and the dolls are the tools of a child’s imagination turned into a ritual of revenge. The film does not excuse him: his victims are children who had nothing to do with his pain.

The clues you can spot

• The mutilated doll. The same signature at each scene tells Arun it is one killer.
• The hearing aid. Meera was hearing-impaired, and the melody recorded on her hearing aid is the only direct trace of the killer’s presence.
• The magician. The tour of school performances is what connects the victims, and the stage name Annabella George hides a woman who is already dead.
• The age of the victims. Every victim is a schoolgirl, the same age Sophia was when she rejected Christopher, which is the film’s strongest hint that his motive is tied to her.

The ending and its meaning

Arun begins as a man who wants to film a psychopath for the glamour of it. Over the film he sees what a real one does to real families: his niece is murdered and his friends are hurt. By the end, when producers finally offer him the chance to direct his film, the audience is left to reflect on what a story about a psychopath should be. The closing beat is both a reward and an uncomfortable irony.

Questions people keep asking

Why did Christopher kill children?

The film ties it to Sophia’s rejection and his humiliation. The victims are young girls, as Sophia was when she turned him down.

Was Inbaraj innocent?

Of the murders, yes. He was a child abuser, which the film does not excuse, but he did not kill the girls, and Arun shoots him in the heat of an escape.

Why does Arun hide Ammu’s death from Kokila?

Kokila is already grieving and the family decides to hold back the full horror for a time.

Is it based on a true story?

The writer-director has said he was inspired by an international news story about a Russian serial killer, then wrote a fictional screenplay around the idea.

See ratings and reviews on the Ratsasan film page.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Ratsasan