Aahana Swrup
‘The Beach House Murders’ charts the story of a tense thriller in which a crime novelist finds herself in the middle of a cryptic string of murders. A year ago, Sarah Brewer became a victim of a brutal and violent assault, for which her ex-husband, Miles, ultimately faced conviction. Since then, she has been attempting to move on with her life and her career while developing a certain paranoia around her safety. Even so, when her writer’s block grows, she takes her best friend’s advice and moves into her beach house for a brief vacation. Initially, the vacation proves to be helpful, even roping Sarah into a whirlwind romance with a mysterious stranger. However, things quickly go south when a stalker crashes the author’s vacation, and a dead body soon turns up at the beach house. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Beach House Murders Plot Synopsis
One night, the police find author Sarah Brewer beaten up and bloodied in her house. Her husband, Miles, is found in the bathroom in a state of shock with blood on his hands. In the trial that follows, the latter is found guilty and sentenced to prison. However, no more than a year after the incident, he’s released on parole for good behavior. Naturally, this puts his ex-wife on edge. During a visit, Alice, her best friend who also happens to be her agent, advises Sarah to take a getaway vacation in her beach house in hopes of overcoming her writer’s block and taking her mind off of Miles. After reluctantly agreeing to the proposition, the author finds the change of scenery to be extremely helpful. On her first night there, she even has a run-in with a handsome stranger, Tony, whom she ends up sharing an impromptu dinner with.
Yet, the serenity of the place is broken the next morning when she and her ex-husband end up stumbling into the same coffee shop. The latter insists that it’s a complete coincidence but also adheres to the rules of the restraining order that the author has against him. The next morning, things take an even worse turn when Sarah awakes in bed with a stranger in his underwear. The man turns out to be an obsessive fan who has been sending her concerning fan mail for some time now. He seems to have deluded ideas about having sexual and romantic relations with the author. Fortunately, through her quick thinking, Sarah is able to hold him at knifepoint and call 911 until the sound of police sirens drives him away. Still, this leaves the stalker at large, which becomes a major safety concern.
Despite everything, Sarah still decides to stay at the beach house, insisting that she’s sick of letting other people’s actions dictate her life and her choices. She also agrees to a conversation with her ex-husband at the public beach, in which he tries to convince her that he wasn’t the one who attacked her that night. Nonetheless, Alice, who happened to be visiting, scares Miles away and tries to dissuade her friend from falling for his explanations and excuses. The following night, Sarah invites Tony over for another date, and the two spend the night together. However, the next morning, as he’s leaving, the author spots him talking to the stalker out on the road. This compels her to grow suspicious of him until a misunderstanding eventually drives a wedge between them.
Things continue to get worse when the stalker breaks into the beach house again and steals the computer and hard drive that has the only copy of the author’s new, unfinished book. Later, Sarah gets a ransom call for the devices with demands of a hundred grand. Since paying the ransom is definitely not an option, the author decides on a risky route. She apologizes to Tony and recruits his help in setting a trap for the stalker, complete with fake stashes of cash. Even though the duo’s plan fails, it brings them closer together and becomes a catalyst in their growing feelings for one another. Nonetheless, all chances of a happy ending are stolen from the pair when the next morning, Sarah wakes to Tony’s dead body in her bed. Shortly afterward, she gets a call from her stalker in which he explicitly confirms that he’s the one who truly attacked her on that night a year ago.
The Beach House Ending: Who Attacked Sarah That Night?
The stalker’s confession in light of Tony’s murder comes as a crucial point in Sarah’s story. A year prior to the tale, the author survives a horrific attack for which her husband is found guilty. However, since the attacker knocked her out from behind, she never actually got to see the perpetrator’s face. For the same reason, even though the evidence piled up against Miles enough to get him locked up, she could never truly be sure of his guilt. Therefore, the stalker’s confession, which arrives without any prompting, deepens her confusion and her doubts about that fateful night.
Around the same time, she also gets into an argument with Alice after she has to deliver the bad news that the publisher has decided to drop the author due to the recent chaos in her life. All of this, paired with the heartbreak of Tony’s death, corners Sarah into an incredibly vulnerable position. As a result, it becomes easy to fall back into old habits, which encourage her to trust Miles and allow him an opportunity to make his case. The stalker’s self-delivered confession and increased negative influence in her life further encourage her toward this avenue. From there, over shared dinner and some drinks with her ex-husband, she becomes entirely convinced of his innocence on the night of the attack.
Sarah believes that Miles had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his frozen reaction was a result of his believing that his wife was dead. The same night, Sarah gets jumped again by the stalker, identified as John Willis, outside of her house. Miles happens to show up at the right time, rescuing Sarah from the situation. However, in the process, he ends up delivering a blow to John’s head with a steel pipe that results in the latter’s death. In the aftermath, the author agrees to cover for him and take the blame for the death since she can pitch the incident as an act of self-defense without raising any suspicions.
After saving her life, Miles also gains a spot in his ex-wife’s good graces. Thus, Sarah begins to feel bad about the negative impact that their past has had on his life. For the same reasons, she makes a public statement, clearing her ex’s name from the incident and establishing John as the real perpetrator. However, as it turns out, this is exactly what Miles has been after this whole time. Before the night of the attack, the couple’s marriage was already on the rocks. The husband was growing increasingly jealous of his wife’s success and had convinced himself that she was sleeping with her publisher to secure her book’s future. As such, he had attacked her in an attempt to dole out punishment as he saw fit. After getting caught and sent to prison, Miles continued to plot the perfect revenge. Therefore, he hired John to play the part of the stalker, ultimately using him as a scapegoat to cover up his own crime.
Does Sarah Survive? What Happens to Miles?
Apparently, fabricating his innocence had only been in the first phase of Miles’ plan. Over the course of the past year, while he was in prison, his hatred for his ex-wife hadn’t lessened in any way. Therefore, along with using her to restore his reputation, he also wants to gain her trust again and slither his way back into her life to exploit her vulnerability. Initially, Sarah remains reluctant to pursue a relationship with her ex again, considering the troubled history that they share. Yet, she allows herself to get swept up in the chaos of the past few days and ultimately agrees to see him again. Nonetheless, by the end of their shared dinner, her ex-husband finally shows his true colors. He injects her with a sedative with plans to throw her in the pool to stage a death by drowning and overdose. Unfortunately for him, Sarah isn’t as alone as Miles wants her to be.
Throughout the story, Alice remains a consistent source of support for the author. Even though her own career prevents her from physically being there for her at the beach house, she’s constantly worried about her safety and ready to fight for her if necessary. Even their previous argument doesn’t prevent her from wanting the best for her closest friend. Therefore, on the night of Miles’ second attempt on Sarah’s life, Alice manages to show up at the right place at the right time. Once she realizes what is happening, she briefly knocks Miles out and jumps after Sarah into the pool. Between the two of them, the women manage to overcome the attack long enough for Sarah to finally stab her ex-husband, ensuring he can never again hurt her.
Is Tony Dead or Alive? Who Killed Him?
In the end, Sarah and Alice find themselves at the beach house, finally free to enjoy the place without Miles and his schemes hovering over the author’s life like a dark cloud. Despite standing on the precipice of a new beginning, something continues to weigh heavily on the protagonist. Despite only knowing Tony for a few days, she had actually begun falling for him. However, the potential that their love had was cut short. Initially, she assumes that John Willis is the one behind the murder. He has previously broken into the beach house multiple times and even shown the potential for violence.
Furthermore, the stalker even confesses to the crime over their final phone call. However, in the end, it’s revealed that John Willis wasn’t actually a crazed superfan. Instead, John was just a person struggling with addiction who had agreed to do Miles’ bidding for the right price. As a result, his every interaction with Sarah was an act he had put upon himself on behalf of his employer. Therefore, it’s entirely possible that it was actually Miles who killed Tony and convinced John to take the fall for it, much like he did with the night of the attack.
Either way, Tony’s death becomes a tragedy that casts a shadow over Sarah even as she emerges alive on the other side. For the same reason, she dreams about the man still being alive on the beach, hoping for a sweet reunion between the two lovers. Nonetheless, this reality is unfortunately a fabricated one. Even so, the author decides that she would immortalize Tony and his impact on her life by penning a love story for her next book. This shift from her normal murder mysteries signifies that she is truly ready to move on from her dark past.
