the end explained........spoilers

Malik begins to suspect the neighbors aren’t well-meaning but inappropriate rubes. Too many odd occurrences, including an older man with a hidden message and lost time, happen. As Malik loses more and more time, he loses touch with reality, and Aaron loses faith in him. In the explosive ending, Malik finally learns the truth. He was being drugged and manipulated. Marshall and his family had set him up. Isolated from Aaron and out of his mind, he does precisely what Marshall expected. He shoots him at a very public party.

Marshall appears to die, and Malik goes to jail, but that is not the end of it. As Malik sits in prison wondering what happened, Marshall comes to him and explains it wasn’t personal. It’s about coercion and survival. His kind needs the general public to perpetuate fear and hate. It allows him to continue the way he has for centuries. As Malik rots in jail, Marshall’s son kills his daughter and probably Aaron. The entire family is monsters, and presumably, the town is as well or at least is complacent accomplices. Earlier in the film, there is a strange gathering at the neighbor’s house, and the next morning an old man is dead. There are multiple people in the house, so at the very least, more than the nuclear family is involved.

Malik manages to provide hope for future generations, though. Malik documented everything he learned and witnessed and burned it to a CD. He hid it in the attic for the next unsuspecting family to find in the hopes that it might save them before it is too late.