movie you’re thinking of with an ending centered on withdrawal is the 2013 Evil Dead remake. In this horror film, Mia, played by Jane Levy, goes to a remote cabin with her brother and friends to kick a brutal heroin addiction.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think They tie her down to help her through the painful detox process, but things turn nightmarish when they find an ancient book in the basement that unleashes demons.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think
From the start, Mia’s withdrawal symptoms make everyone doubt her. She smells rotting flesh from the basement, but her friends chalk it up to her drug cravings and shakes.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think One friend reads from the book, and soon the group faces possession, gore, and self-harm as evil spreads. Mia becomes the story’s heart, fighting both real demons and the ones tied to her addiction.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think
The ending ties back to that raw withdrawal setup. After bloody battles, Mia confronts the horror head-on in a final, grueling sequence that echoes her detox struggle. She emerges blood-soaked and determined, nailing the source of evil shut with a chainsaw, but the close calls with her addiction linger as the real terror.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think Director Fede Alvarez uses Mia’s arc to blend addiction’s hell with supernatural scares, making her dismissal during withdrawal a key twist that builds dread.
Other films touch on withdrawal too, like Trainspotting, where Renton battles heroin detox in vivid, miserable scenes that show the pull of drugs.https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/6-realistic-movies-about-addiction/ But Evil Dead stands out for making it the emotional core that frames the whole horror ride.
Sources
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/340-a-woman-under-the-influence-the-war-at-home
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma_(film)
https://www.goldenscript.net/post/5-approaches-to-writing-emotionally-resonant-endings
https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/evil-dead/the-evil-dead-remake-is-still-better-than-you-think
https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/6-realistic-movies-about-addiction/
https://www.boochnews.com/2025/12/09/review-kombucha-a-5-star-movie/
