The Ending To Amazon Prime Video’s New Serial-Killer Thriller Is Wild

The Calendar Killer launched on Prime Video on January 16th, 2025, and it quickly rocketed to the summit of the app’s top 10 movies. The thriller is certainly suspenseful, but the ending might leave some viewers cold. [Major spoilers ahead!]

The Calendar Killer takes place over the course of a few hours leading up to midnight. Jules is a volunteer for a phone service that offers advice and help to people walking home alone at night. Tonight Jules is connected over the phone with Klara, a woman who has been targeted by a serial killer who informs the victim of the time they will die. Klara’s message from the killer says that either she or her husband will die, and today is the day.

The basic setup of The Calendar Killer is immediately engaging. It adds immediacy to the suspense as Klara has only hours to live, and the killer could be anywhere. Also, showing Klara gradually begin to trust Jules and make some fateful decisions about her life is often very emotional. Klara’s background involves horrific abuse from her politician husband, Martin. Besides the threat of the Calendar Killer, the biggest plot thread is the movie is really about Klara taking a stand against Martin.

However, considering the extensive nature of Martin’s crimes, the ending could have been way more cathartic.

Towards the end, it is revealed that [final spoiler warning] Jules is the Calendar Killer. He’s been talking to Klara from her own apartment the entire time, waiting for her to come home so he could enact the final part of his plan. The twist itself is good. Hints littered throughout the movie will mean it won’t surprise everyone, but even if you know it’s coming, it’s still interesting. And if you don’t see it coming, it’s a huge moment. What might be a letdown is how the entire situation is resolved.

Klara arrives home, and Martin arrives shortly after. Jules ties up Martin and explains to Klara that he targets women in abusive relationships, forcing them to kill their abuser. If she doesn’t, Jules kills the woman. His reasoning is that he’s giving women back control of their lives, despite the fact that Jules himself is abusively forcing Klara into taking action.

Klara refuses to be controlled by Jules. She doesn’t kill Martin, and instead stabs Jules in the foot in an attempt to get away. Jules catches her, but just before he’s about to kill her, Jules’s father shoots him in the head. It’s a bit of a deus ex machina, but his father was searching for Jules the entire movie, so it’s okay. Then, the movie jumps slightly ahead and shows that Klara secretly recorded a conversation she had with Martin where he talks about being abusive. The movie ends as we learn that Martin is going to prison for five years.

If you’re like me, that final reveal might leave you conflicted. Martin getting prison time is good, but it seems like a mild punishment for the horrendous acts we see him do in the movie, and the additional acts that are insinuated. He’s been an abuser for a long time, and the damage he’s done is irreparable. Plus, the idea of a politician like Martin getting convicted of a crime doesn’t necessarily mean much in modern politics.

A more cathartic choice would have been for Martin to die in the apartment, though maybe not even at the hands of Klara. The fact that she defies Jules is important for her character, but there are many ways where Martin could still die. Maybe Martin breaks free and Jules stabs him, then Klara stabs Jules. Or Jules’s dad walks in during a struggle and shoots both Martin and Jules. There are plenty of ways to keep Klara’s hands blood-free while still giving the audience the satisfaction of seeing Martin—a character who is portrayed as 100% despicable with zero sympathetic traits—get the ending he truly deserved.

The movie could still end with Klara leaking the conversation she recorded to the public, thereby showing Martin’s true nature to the world posthumously. It’s not like The Calendar Killer ever tries to be completely realistic, so a bit of over-the-top catharsis might have gone a long way to winning over even more viewers.