Who The Killer Is In Netflix’s Horror Movie

The Swedish horror movie The Conference follows a team-building conference gone wrong, and the identity of the killer takes everyone by surprise.

Warning: mentions of murder and suicide.

Summary

• The Swedish horror movie The Conference follows a team-building retreat that turns deadly when a masked killer starts killing attendees.
• The identity of the killer is revealed, along with dark secrets from some team members, as the plot unfolds.
• The killer seeks revenge against those responsible for destroying his father's farm and commits murder before targeting the project team.

The Swedish horror movie The Conference follows a team-building conference that goes horribly wrong as a masked killer sets out to kill every one of the attendees, and the identity of the killer takes everyone by surprise. Netflix has a wide catalog of international movies from different genres, and joining the fun is The Conference (Konferensen). Directed by Patrik Eklund and based on the novel of the same name by Mats Strandberg, The Conference is a slasher movie that gives a violent twist to team-building conferences and activities to reinforce the bond between employees.

The Conference follows a group of municipal employees who go on a team-building retreat the day before the ceremony of their latest project, the Kolarängen Mall. The audience quickly learns that there’s a lot of hostility and tension among the employees, and it only gets worse when a mysterious masked killer begins to take them down one by one. Not only is the identity of the killer revealed in The Conference but also some dark secrets from some of the members of the team, which led to the horrible events at the retreat.

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Who The Real Killer Was In Netflix's The Conference

Before the big reveal of the masked killer’s identity in The Conference, there are a couple of clues that hint at who the killer is but also some that try to trick the audience into thinking it’s someone else. During one of their meetings, the team’s leader, Ingela (Maria Sid), recalled one incident involving one of their colleagues, Frans. Frans was against the shopping mall project due to its environmental impact and how morally and ethically wrong it was, as they would be destroying the livelihood of a farm owner named Pålsson. Ingela and the project manager, Jonas (Adam Lundgren), didn’t consider him and moved forward with the project, which angered Frans.

Frans physically attacked Ingela and stabbed her in the shoulder, something that Ingela claimed left her traumatized. After that, Frans was kicked out of the team, hence why he didn’t go with the rest to the retreat. One of the employees, Anette (Cecilia Nilsson), told Jonas she felt responsible for the murders as she told Frans where they would be, thinking Frans was the one behind the mask. The other employees also believed Frans was the killer, but Amir (Amed Bozan) and Torbjörn (Claes Hartelius), after seeing a newspaper on the floor, realized that the real killer was the son of farmer Pålsson.

Pålsson owned the land where the Kolarängen Mall was about to be built, and though he was obviously against the project, he lost the land. To make it worse, Lina (Katia Winter) found out that the company not only destroyed Pålsson’s farm but they also didn’t pay him for the land, leaving Pålsson with absolutely nothing. This led Pålsson to commit suicide, so his son had every reason to want revenge against everyone involved in the project of the Kolarängen Mall.

Why Palsson's Son Killed The Hotel Staff In Revenge

Pålsson’s son targeted those whose greedy plans led to the destruction of his father’s farm and his death, but he also killed the entire hotel staff before he even killed one of the project’s team members. Pålsson's son is among the uncommon slasher killers who have reasons to kill their victims, and not just kill people for the sake of it or because they were close to their real targets. The hotel turned out to be one of the few establishments in the area that supported the building of the mall, and the hotel manager, Jenny (Lola Zackow), proudly showed a magazine where the hotel staff showed their support. Once Pålsson’s son got rid of the hotel staff, he went after the group.

Jonas’ Twist & Plan In The Conference Explained

It was clear from the beginning that the group of employees didn’t get along and there was a lot of tension among them. It soon became clear that it was not just a case of different and strong personalities clashing, but also that the team’s leaders, Ingela and Jonas, and Jonas’ (disturbing) close friend Kaj (Christoffer Nordenrot) didn’t care about the rest and only thought about their personal benefit. Ingela was first hinted to be the villain among the group, but that role was actually Jonas’ all along.

Jonas maintained passive-aggressive behavior throughout the team’s time at the retreat before the murders, and constantly tried to disprove everything Lina said. After a group activity in which Jonas revealed how attached he was to his laptop, Lina snuck into this room and went into Jonas’ laptop to see if he was hiding something. Lina found emails, contracts, and other files that proved not only that Jonas was behind many injustices provoked by their shopping mall project but also that he had a secret partnership with the company’s rival, Backman-Kroon. Jonas also forged Lina’s signature on backdated contracts and claimed to the team to have a bunch of stores signed up for a place in the mall, but it was all a lie.

What Jonas had done was plan a weak project that would end up bankrupting the entire community, but he wouldn’t have been affected at all. Jonas had a deal with Backman-Kroon that granted him a high-exec job once the mall project crashed and burned, so he didn’t care about Kolarängen Mall at all, just about himself, so much so that he was willing to kill Lina so she wouldn’t reveal his secrets.

Who Survives & Dies In The Conference's Ending

Although Pålsson’s son got his revenge, not all characters in The Conference died and not all were killed by the masked murderer. The first victim from the group was Kaj, who was cut in pieces in the hot tub in front of Anette, who ran away and hid after the massacre. The killer then came across Ingela, who he hanged from the hotel’s flag pole for everyone to see. After the group found Ingela’s body and the killer was in front of them, the real race to save their lives began.

The group ended up splitting, with Amir, Torbjörn, Nadja (Bahar Pars), and Eva (Eva Melander) running to the reception of the hotel to hide there, while Lina and Jonas ran into the woods. The first group went against horror movies' clichés and stayed together, except when they tried to escape with Lina and Jonas, after which only Tobrbjörn and Eva returned to the reception, while Nadja was left injured in the woods and Anette was killed after Jonas escaped without her. Meanwhile, Lina, after supposedly getting rid of Jonas, decided to use the zip line with Amir to go to the other side of the lake and call for help. Unfortunately, Pålsson’s son was many steps ahead and prepared a deadly trap, with Amir sacrificing himself so Lina could carry on with their plan.

Just as Eva and Torbjörn seemed to be nearing their end, Nadja reappeared and decapitated the killer, while Lina managed to call for help. The Conference had one final twist with Jonas revealed to have survived and attacking Lina again, who then tore off his scalp (which was already loose due to one of the killer’s traps) and left him to die in the lake. In the end, only four characters survived the murders of The Conference: Lina, Nadja, Torbjörn, and Eva, who also questioned and opposed Ingela and Jonas’ plans at some point.