Warning: This article contains spoilers for Opus.

Ayo Edebiri‘s final girl, Ariel Ecton, finds great success with her opus — a book about how she survived a pop star’s murderous rampage at his remote compound — at the end of Opus, A24’s new horror film about toxic fandom. She’s horrified to learn, however, that it was all part of a larger scheme. 

The pop star in question is Alfred Moretti (played by John Malkovich), an enigmatic music icon who, after decades out of the spotlight, re-emerges to announce a new album billed as his magnum opus. He invites a small group of journalists and influencers, including ambitious young magazine writer Ariel, to his remote compound in Utah for an exclusive listening party. Moretti, it turns out, is out for retribution. With the help of the folks who reside on his property, referred to as the Levelists (see: cult), he slowly kills off the group of meticulously curated media professionals who’ve wronged him, whether through a past critical review or an unflattering paparazzi shot.

“I think for a lot of people, the instinct is that this is a revenge film, and that’s not what Opus is,” director and writer Mark Anthony Green tells Entertainment Weekly. “There’s a much bigger thing that I want people to engage with, which is the tribalism of it all.”

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The film is an indictment of the cult of toxic fandom and rabid loyalty surrounding larger-than-life figures such as Moretti. By the end of the carnage, the pop star is incarcerated for the murders, but the Levelists, who all managed to escape the compound before police arrived, are spread out across disparate communities, blending in, waiting. A traumatized Ariel still hasn’t been able to make sense of it all, but a one-on-one with Moretti in prison arms her with disorienting clarity: she is but a mere vessel, unwittingly spreading the gospel of the Levelists through her best-selling book.

So, was that Moretti’s opus all this time? Green parallels the why of it all to Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old arraigned for the brazen December 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Though Opus was written before the incident said to have stemmed from frustration with inequity in the American healthcare system, “there are many parallels, both fortunate and unfortunate,” says Green.

“If Luigi stood on a corner with a sign and said all of the things that are wrong with the healthcare system, neither one of us would know his name. If Luigi punched that guy in the face, neither one of us would know his name,” says Green. “Luigi shot and killed him. Not only did he shoot and kill him, but he shot and killed him in such a way that now he’s a global figure, and we are having a polarizing conversation about this thing that he cares a lot about.” 

But listen, Green isn’t in the business of providing clear-cut answers. He just hopes you engage with the broader cultural themes. “I think my job as an artist isn’t to answer questions, it is to make something provocative enough for people to ask the questions,” he says. “What I have found really encouraging about the end of the film is that people feel challenged by it. They’re asking questions and [finding] a rewarding path to conversation. I felt that so much at Sundance with all of the screenings. People were engaging with: ‘Could this happen? Why did he do it like this? Why do we look at these figures?'”

He adds, “Tribalism has become such a deep part of our identity. I think it’s genuinely cancerous and eroding culture. And I think we’re starting on a path that feels like it’s going to be really hard to come back from.”