It’s among the most notorious found footage movies of all time. For those who can’t bear to watch, EW spoils it all.

Megan Is Missing ending explained: Is Megan found?

It’s among the most notorious found footage movies of all time. For those who can’t bear to watch, EW spoils it all.

By Declan Gallagher

April 15, 2026 5:00 p.m. ET

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Megan (Rachel Quinn) and Amy (Amber Perkins), blissfully unaware of the dangers of the internet. Credit:

Since its 2011 release, *Megan Is Missing* has amassed a dedicated fanbase that will readily laud it as one of the most disturbing found footage movies ever released. But many of them didn't discover it until the rise of social media, when the movie became a viral phenomenon among Gen Z film fans on TikTok.

At the time, the platform was flooded with slack-jawed reaction videos from viewers unprepared for the raw, unvarnished brand of “this could happen to you” horror that director Michael Goi unleashes.

The film is presented as a pieced-together collection of evidence relating to the disappearances of two Southern California teenage girls. It’s made up of video chats, camcorder diaries, photographs, surveillance footage, and news broadcasts, with title cards that fill in the gaps.

If you'd rather read about its gut-churning conclusion than watch it, keep scrolling as we break down the ending of *Megan Is Missing*.

What is Megan Is Missing about?

Megan and Amy in their natural habitat: video chatting from their bedrooms.

Popular “it” girl Megan (Rachel Quinn) is best friends with wallflower Amy (Amber Perkins). We see their day-to-day friendship mostly through their regular video chats, and occasionally via Amy’s personal video camera.

The two girls couldn’t be more different. Megan hangs out with the fashionable crowd; they see the introverted Amy as an uncool buzzkill. Megan boasts about her many experiences with boys; Amy has no such experiences to boast about. Megan has an unstable home life, her mom constantly at her throat. Amy, meanwhile, has a rather picture-perfect, if unremarkable, suburban existence with two loving parents.

In what seems like an unassuming development, Megan begins chatting with an older guy named Josh that she met on the internet. It’s casual, but they eventually decide to meet up at a local diner where the kids often hang out.

Megan is never seen again.

Who abducted Megan in Megan Is Missing?

The last known footage of Megan Stewart alive in 'Megan Is Missing'.

Amy is the first to notice Megan's absence. They talk constantly, so that makes sense.

Megan’s other friends get wise, too. Soon, it’s a local news story, then a national one. Investigators piece together the timeline of her last known whereabouts. In security footage from the day of her disappearance, Megan shows up at the diner and gets confronted by an unknown male, who takes her by the arm and forcefully puts her into a pickup truck.

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There’s little evidence beyond that. Josh’s online profile is a dead end. Amy takes it upon herself to do some digging on her own, while also recording a sort of video diary as she processes her grief and worry over her missing friend.

She visits one of their favorite haunts, a peaceful spot under a local bridge. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice what she doesn't: a figure lurking in the back of the frame, obscured by the surrounding foliage.

Amy (Amber Perkins) at a favorite hangout, with a shadowy figure observing from several yards away.

Amy gets in touch with Josh, who initially plays innocent before pivoting to taunts and threats that make it clear he’s the culprit.

She returns to that spot under the bridge, and the last image we see of her recording is a freeze-frame of a man’s arm reaching out to snatch her. And just like that, we have *two *missing girls on our hands.

What happens to Amy?

Amy (Amber Perkins) imprisoned in an unidentified, undiscovered dungeon.

A title card informs us that verified images of Megan have surfaced on a “fetish website.” The two photos show the terrified girl locked in a pillory table, with torture devices in her mouth and nose.

Meanwhile, police discover Amy's camcorder abandoned in a local trash can. The camera features 22 minutes of footage, which we subsequently see “unedited.”

The footage begins with Amy chained to a wall in an apparent underground torture chamber. She begs “Josh” for mercy. He torments her, makes her eat food like a dog, and later sexually assaults her on the same table where Megan was tortured.

In a later snippet, Josh unchains Amy and tells her he’s ready to let her go home. All he needs her to do is get inside a 50-gallon blue barrel so that he can release her without drawing law enforcement to his location.

What happens at the end of Megan Is Missing?

Megan Stewart's final resting place.

When Josh opens the barrel, Amy is greeted by Megan’s decaying corpse. She tries to run away, but there’s nowhere to go in the enclosed dungeon. Josh corners her and forces her into the barrel next to her dead friend.

The footage cuts to the middle of an anonymous forest. Josh begins to dig a hole to bury the two girls. What proceeds is an extended, unbroken low-angle shot of him digging, with the barrel on the left side of the frame and Amy’s echoing voice begging him to spare her life. She attempts to win him over, saying they can run away together, that she’ll do anything.

Josh just keeps on digging. When the hole is big and deep enough, he rolls Amy and Megan into it and fills the hole with dirt. Before turning off the camera for good, he shines his flashlight into the woods, as if to give authorities a taunting glance of Megan and Amy’s final resting place. Then he walks off into the early morning light.

Is Josh caught at the end of Megan Is Missing?

Last known footage of 'Josh' burying Megan and Amy in 'Megan Is Missing'.

Though it's not explicitly stated, the film’s content makes it clear that “Josh” has not been found, nor is his true identity known. He states, off-camera, that Josh isn’t his real name earlier in the film. The photo he used on social media, where he was known as "Skaterdude," was likely a fake.

The only presumptive footage of the girls’ abductor is the indecipherable figure behind the foliage on Amy’s video camera, and the surveillance footage of Megan’s abduction at the diner.

The film closes with the girls’ two missing person posters, followed by an old video clip the two recorded of themselves months earlier. As they lounge together on Amy’s bed, they imagine what their future adult lives will be like.

Speaking with ** in 2020, Goi looked back on the ending and the criticism he faced from those who deemed it exploitative. "The movie is too extreme for some people to either take seriously or to not be judgmental of the motives behind making it," he said. "In retrospect, the message may have been clearer if the movie hadn't been so frank and brutal. But on the other hand, if the movie weren't so frank and brutal, then it would be basically a lie to what I originally had set out to do or to show. So in that way, there's a no-win situation."

Where can I watch it?

*Megan Is Missing* is available to stream on Tubi.

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