V/H/S/94 Ending Explained (Spoilers)

A police S.W.A.T. team investigates about a mysterious VHS tape and discovers a sinister cult that has pre-recorded material which uncovers a nightmarish conspiracy.

V/H/S/94: Spoilers Below

Holy Hell (Prologue/Frame Narrative)

A woman garbed in white inhales vapor from a gooey, white substance on her hands. Later, with her eyes gouged out, the same woman in a staticky voice counts down from ten as another woman passes behind her. A SWAT team — comprised of Slater, Oursler, Sprayberry, Spivey, Petro, and Nash, and their cameraman Gary — raid a warehouse during what they believe to be a drug bust. Behind the warehouse, they find a private jet. A crackly, distorted female voice plays a creepy message from the speakers. The SWAT team explores the building, and its tight corridors, discovering multiple cell-like rooms with television sets playing static. The officers spot a man sitting on the floor of one of the rooms and order him to move, but they realize he's dead when he doesn't respond. His eyes are gouged out, and the drug the SWAT team is after, the goopy white substance, is dripping all over the floor.

Continuing to search the warehouse for suspects, they find the room in the VHS tape filled with more dead cultists. Slater orders the Blue team to probe the upper floors while the other SWAT officers carry on their search. A TV begins to play a newscast.

Storm Drain

Holly Marciano and Jeff, her camera, are filming a story for Channel 6 about the Rat Man, a cryptid of local legend who supposedly lived in the town's sewers. After interviewing a few of the town's residents about the creature, the duo descends into a storm drain, including several homeless encampments. While filming, a man covered in black slime approaches them. Holly attempts to interview him, but they flee when he begins to spit up black liquid and murmurs, "Raatma." Unfortunately, they are captured by other sewer people before they can escape, and they are brought more profound into the sewers.

Finally, the local church minister, who Holly had interviewed earlier, appears and announces that a new order will soon begin. He then summons the Rat Man, a disturbing rat/human hybrid creature that he and the rest of the sewer people call "Raatma" and worship as a god. Raatma vomits black liquid that the minister then pours on Jeff's face, burning him to death. The sewer dwellers present a screaming Holly to Raatma, who growls in approval.

We return to the newscast after an infomercial for "The Veggie Masher," we return to the newscast. Holly's co-anchor explains that although Jeff is still missing, they found Holly and rescued her from the storm drain, and she is now safely back at the station. Holly gives her following report, unwittingly substituting random words with "Raatma," confusing her co-anchor. Then, she suddenly vomits the black liquid on his face, burning him while in the air. While the station explodes into chaos, Holly, brainwashed by the sewer cult, cheerfully finishes her report, signing off with "Hail Raatma."

The SWAT team comes upon a room resembling a church, with a giant screen at the front and severed dummies in the seats in the framing story. The big screen begins to play video footage from a funeral home.

The Empty Wake

At Jensen Funeral Home, the family of Andrew Edwards has requested that the path of Andrew's wake be video recorded the entire night, and a young woman named Hailey has been assigned to it. Ronald, her boss, and Tim, her assistant, leave the building for the night and leave her alone to pass the time reading. The power flickers from the strong thunderstorm happening outside. Hailey then calls her friend Sharon, checking for Andrew's name in local obituaries. Hailey calls Tim after hearing strange noises from the casket and seeing it move on the brier, and she tells him she thinks Andrew may still be alive in the coffin. Tim explains that the noises are likely gasses being released from the body. The storm intensifies, and the building continues to lose power. A strange man arrives for Andrew's wake, claiming to be his relative named Gustav, and Hailey lets him pay his respects. Gustav utters an incantation in Hungarian, thanks to Hailey for letting him see Andrew, and abruptly leaves.

After some time has passed, Hailey's friend Sharon informs her that Andrew had committed suicide after jumping off a church and speaking gibberish. The building is engulfed in darkness once the power shuts out again, and though Hailey tries to leave when she hears more noises coming from the casket, she finds that the front doors have been chained shut. She returns to the viewing room and finds the coffin tipped over and open. Andrew's reanimated corpse attacks her, but it cannot see her because the top of its head is missing. She finds the missing part of his head while hiding behind the casket. The eyes on Andrew's separated head make contact with her, allowing the corpse to find her. His corpse attacks her, and the camera cuts out after the storm, now a tornado, strikes the funeral home. After it's calmed, a zombified or spiritually possessed Hailey is seen crawling out through the window.

In the framing story, the SWAT team finds upside-down crosses hanging from ceilings, random body parts on the floors, and mannequins in the toilet stalls. Panicked, they plan to exit the building. But, as an unknown voice states, "Forever is right now," a television begins to play footage from a bizarre laboratory.

The Subject

A man in Indonesia wakes up, finding that his body has been surgically removed and replaced with mechanical spider legs. He collapses from his restraints and bursts into flames, which are put out by Dr. James Suhendra, a deranged scientist who kidnaps people for his experiments to try and create the perfect human-machine hybrid. He lobotomizes a young woman with the initials S.A. (referred to as 'Subject 99') with a round saw and sedates a restrained young man ('Subject 98') after he wakes up early. Both of his experiments worked; Subject 98 becomes a giant robot with spring-powered blades instead of arms, and S.A. becomes a working cyborg that can respond to speech. The rest of the tape is mainly from her perspective. James celebrates his success, and a news report state that a rash of recent disappearances is brewing distrust between the public and the police. The police suspect James of kidnapping his patients, and S.A.'s old self is shown onscreen; James is surprised that she can still remember what she looks like.

James tries to erase S.A.'s memories, but she wakes up during the procedure and hits James before trying to release her restraints. James beats her again and again with a metal tray, and her battery power decreases until a knock at the door freezes him in his tracks; a team of heavily armored police officers has arrived to arrest James. He throws a blanket over S.A. as the officer's break-in, and the tape cuts to timid cameraman Jono's feed. The commander confirms that James is the suspect and executes him on the spot before hunting the lab for survivors. They find S.A. and argue over whether she should be shut down or kept alive since while she is a survivor, she can't be classified as human anymore. The lab suffers a blackout, and Jono witnesses S.A.'s escape but remains silent about it.

An officer tries to free the group by shooting a door lock but causes an explosion instead. An alarm blares as the group recovers, and James's contingency plan activates. Over a speaker, he says that his creations are his and his only, and anyone trying to take them from him will die. Subject 98 wakes up and butchers most of the soldiers; Jono and the commander survive after hurling a grenade at it. S.A. comes to and is chased by Subject 98 and shot by the remaining officers as she tries fleeing the building. She locks herself in an office room and finds blueprints for her cannon arm and cyborg body, along with the upper part of her face and head preserved in a formaldehyde jar. Seeing her new form in the mirror for the first time, she is enraged and shatters the glass. S.A. carves a path through the building after leaving the room and finding more of James's failed projects, butchering any soldiers that attack her in self-defense. S.A. finds Jono behind a door, who is spared after he promises to help her escape and begs for his life. The commander returns and beats S.A. after shooting her; Jono is attacked by Subject 98 after he takes a gun and shoots the commander dead. With critically low power remaining in her system, S.A. tears out 98's brain with the last of her strength. She collapses, and her battery dies next to Jono, who is heavily injured. A security camera then shows S.A. standing up on her own accord, escaping from the lab.

Back in the framing story, Nash and Petro have kidnapped Spivey. While his teammates desperately look for him, Nash states, "Forever starts right now." Slater tries to communicate with his missing teammates over his radio in front of a wall covered in television screens, and Petro says that he should try not to lose his head. Slater collapses and enters a trance in front of one of the screens, displaying footage of a snowy, fortified militia enclosure.

Terror

The First Patriots Movement Militia is an extremist group currently plotting to blow up a government building to "take back America." They live in a well-fortified compound in an abandoned area in Detroit, Michigan. The complex has a room for security cameras and a heavily protected small room covered in wooden crosses. In the cross room, a man is chained up and kept prisoner. Bob, Chuck, and Greg enter the room. The man begs for his life, and Greg, the group leader, shoots him at point-blank range. Then, the film cuts to one of the group's propaganda videos, where Greg explains that the group intends to purge the evil from America.

Members of the terrorist group survey the building they intend to blow up from their car. Back at the compound, the same Slater from the framing segment arrives to supply the group with weapons and ammunition and asks if they've tested the "creature." The group regularly shoots the man in the cross room, who is actually a vampire, and plan to use his blood as a bomb since it becomes explosive once exposed to sunlight. They perform an experiment to test whether their plan will work: they inject a rabbit with the vampire's blood, cage it, and when the sun rises, it explodes. In the celebration that night, the group drinks and parties heavily. Bob enters the compound and visits Steve, sitting in the security camera room. Upon seeing the vampire's corpse, Bob goads Steve into kissing it. When he does, the head pulls forward and splatters blood all over him as Bob laughs.

The following day, an emergency bell rings and alerts the group members. Greg yells at Jimmy, who was supposed to be guarding the compound. Jimmy runs towards a body hidden behind a truck, discovering Terry's corpse, his neck poorly gored. Suddenly, crashes come from inside the complex, and the group realizes they are missing Steve. Greg calls for Steve right when a severed head is thrown out of the compound entrance, and the sound roars from inside. A member starts firing a machine gun mounted on top of a truck on the compound but loses control of the gun's sway and accidentally shoots several of his fellow terrorists until he is shot in the head. Steve stumbles outside of the building covered in the vampire's blood, and he explodes once the sun hits him.

The group's remaining members - Bob, Jimmy, Greg, and Tom - vow to kill the vampire. They enter the complex and discover the creature hiding in the attic; it tears Tom's face-off and shoots at it. In the attic, the vampire repeatedly slams Jimmy's head on the floor, killing him. Bob shoots at it but misses and hits Greg's leg instead. The vampire assaults Bob, who dies when it bites off his face. Greg is dragged by the vampire into the cage as he chants, "Christ is king." It opens the attic window and lets in the sunlight, exploding itself, Greg, and the entire compound.

Holy Hell (Epilogue)

Most of the SWAT team are dead and have had their eyes gouged out. Petro and Nash tie Slater to the chair and call him out for supplying the terrorist group in the previous video with guns. The women explain that they are members of the snuff/fetish film cult operating out of the warehouse. They create and distribute videotapes depicting animal cruelty, cannibalism, and other shocking acts of violence. They tell Slater he will be their final kill for this video; then, Petro beats him to death with a video camera. As the film ends, she and Nash believe this will be their best tape yet and wonder what to call it.

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