What happened to Jessica in the movie Last Shift: plot summary, meaning of the ending, description and explanation of the film, similar movies.
Country: USA
Genre: horror
Year of production: 2014
Director: Anthony DiBlasi
Actors: Juliana Harkvy, Joshua Mikel, Hank Stone
Slogan: “All Hail The King of Hell”
There are so many films in the “alone in the dark” category that each new “horror” film about a hero forced to confront evil spirits from a bad place is often perceived with skepticism. Nevertheless, the plot of the film “Last Shift” is able to truly interest the viewer and even frighten him.
What is the movie about
Brief description of the contents of the picture. The plot of the film begins with Jessica Lauren, a rookie police officer, preparing to begin her first assignment: she will have to serve at night at the station. Not long ago, the girl’s father, who was also a police officer, died.
Arriving at the scene, Jessica meets with Sergeant Cohen, who brings her up to date. According to him, the new police department is now located in a different building, that is, the place where the main character will spend the night is, in fact, practically abandoned. From here, only important evidence remains to be removed.
The meaning of what Jessica has to do is simple: she needs to wait for representatives of the company that deals with the dismantling and transportation of hazardous waste. Cohen provides an important detail: alarm calls that come here are automatically redirected to a new location. However, Jessica catches one such challenge.
Someone on the other end of the line tells her about his kidnapping. Unfortunately, after this the connection is interrupted and, despite the fact that Jessica understood the meaning of the message, she has nothing to convey to the new station.
After this, real devilry begins to happen in the building: strange rustling sounds are heard, someone’s indistinct muttering is heard. Then there is a knock on the door, but there is no one outside the threshold… However, a homeless man somehow gets into the building. He is barefoot and seems out of his mind – this is exactly the interpretation that comes to the surprised Jessica’s mind as she watches the guy urinate on the floor. She “politely asks” him to go outside, and then, taking pity, brings him his old shoes.
Meanwhile, the devilry continues, the rustling in the corridor intensifies. The phone rings again and Jessica eventually manages to talk to the kidnapped woman. She reports that her name is Monica Young and she is being kept at some ranch. The girl passes the information to the new station and they promise to sort everything out. Then Jessica receives another call – from a representative of a hazardous waste transportation company. The man reports that he is delayed and apologizes for the inconvenience.
Having set out for a new rustle, the girl comes to the archive and sees the same homeless man, who is clearly looking for something there. Jessica detains him and takes him to a holding cell. Suddenly the door to the cell closes and the lights go out. A homeless man attacks a police officer, but Jessica knocks him out with a stun gun. After a while, she sees creepy ghosts and gets seriously scared. However, the door to the cell soon opens and the light turns on.
Having decided to block all the doors, the main character sees a prostitute at the entrance. She says that she is well acquainted with the site – she sat in a cell here. This happened when John Michael Paymon, the charismatic leader of a destructive organization involved in kidnapping girls, was brought here. Members of his sect were then detained along with him. Having pleased the law enforcement officers with an exclusive performance of a sacred song, the sectarians hanged themselves with their sheets. According to the prostitute, the evil that the criminals carried within themselves simply permeated the walls of this site.
It would seem that this is the answer to everything that is happening. However, Jessica does not like this idea – she still does not believe in otherworldly forces. Moreover: she used to think that all the sectarians were killed in their lair – her father died during the assault. It turns out, not all of them?.. So she comes to the conclusion that all the devilry is an ominous conspiracy of the remaining members of Paimon’s “family”.
Soon the recording of the interrogation of Paimon and the rest of the criminals turns on by itself – they quite colorfully describe the “executions” of the kidnapped girls they kept at the ranch. A little later, Jessica is visited by her colleague, Ryan Price. Just in case, she asks him if he has anything to do with everything that is happening here – that is, are her colleagues playing a prank on her?
The guy assures that he knows nothing about this – he just stopped by to visit her. The conversation turns to the girl’s father. It turns out that Ryan was nearby during the assault – having discovered the kidnapped girls at one of the ranches, they decided to save them on their own, without waiting for help. The sectarians opened fire on them…
After telling Jessica that her father would be proud of her, he leaves, and she, to her horror, sees a gaping wound on the back of his head. She realizes that Ryan was a ghost only after she encounters the active and very dangerous spirits of the cultists. And a little later she discovers that all the evidence that needed to be transported to another station has been opened…
She is fed up with everything that is happening, and she asks Cohen to allow her to leave her post. But he reproachfully reminds her of her father – he would never do that.
Monica calls Jessica again and says that she managed to escape, but someone is chasing her. The heroine passes on the information to her colleagues, and in response hears that Monica Young has been dead for a year – she and the other girls were killed by Paimon’s sectarians. Moreover, a colleague says that all the police are aware of the devilry that is happening at the old station – that is why they moved to a new place…
The phone rings again. Hearing a familiar voice, Jessica says that Monica Young has been dead for a long time. After this, a creepy ghost of that same girl appears in the station. The heroine’s nerves give way and she tries to escape, but she fails because the doors to the station are blocked. And then her dead father calls her and asks her to take revenge: the killer, according to him, is now in the police station.
She actually soon meets Paimon himself. He is not alone – next to him there are two more dead members of his sect. Seriously frightened, the girl nevertheless pulls herself together. She has to fight on two fronts – living sectarians are infiltrating the precinct. Jessica manages to shoot them all. Victory? Alas, no – Cohen, who arrived in time, shoots at her…
Last Shift Ending explained
Explanation of the ending of the picture. In the end, it turns out that the three “cultists” were actually employees of the hazardous waste transportation company she was supposed to meet.
Cohen calls an ambulance for his colleague, and Jessica, who is rapidly losing strength, imagines that Paimon and his sectarians are next to her. The monsters tell her that now she is one of them…
The meaning of the ending of the film “The Last Shift” can be understood if we recall one of the film’s mise-en-scènes. In it, the main character sees that all the packages containing dangerous substances have been opened. That is, we can assume that everything that happened to Jessica was one big hallucination.
The meaning of the film Last Shift
The film “Last Shift” cannot be called a serious film with a hidden meaning. However, this is a good niche horror film with an interesting concept. The main character will have to do night duty in a closed police station. What could be simpler? However, it turns out that the walls of the establishment keep dark secrets, the echoes of which the heroine will have to face.
We have already seen films about mansions, mental hospitals and hotels going crazy. However, crazy police stations somehow did not appear in horror films. This picture adequately fills the gap. One of its main advantages is the game of contrasts. The main character is a police officer, accustomed to dealing with very material evil. However, she must face a completely different type of threat… Or not?
The director managed to blur the line between reality and the paranormal. Some things are done by enraged ghosts, and some things are done by completely living people. The further the plot moves, the more precarious the world of Anthony DiBlasi’s film becomes. At first, it seems that Jessica’s endurance can only be envied – and this is not surprising, because she does not believe in mysticism. However, she is slowly overcome by confusion and confusion. These feelings are transmitted to the viewer and slowly penetrate the skin.
At some point the film begins to resemble a psychological thriller. And it becomes interesting: how real is what is happening in the police station? Is he really being attacked by ghosts, or is it just because dangerous chemicals are affecting the main character? The viewer will have to answer this question.
By the way, we can also assume that everything that happens is just a figment of the imagination of the heroine, who developed a mental illness against the background of the loss of her father. She knew about the sectarians and how everything happened, it was just that that night one thing (chemicals) overlapped with another and what happened happened.
What is the point of the film? Probably, the policeman has no right to evade his duty even under the threat of death. In addition, the shadow of her father, a real, brave policeman who was loved and respected by his colleagues, constantly loomed behind Jessica. She probably believed that she had no right to be weak – because of him, for his sake… So this film is about family values too.
Similar films
Here are several films that are somewhat similar in plot and meaning to the film “The Last Shift”:
- “Astral. Ritual Malum” (USA, 2023). Jessica starts her night shift at the police station. A year ago there was a bloody massacre there, and now something strange is happening.
- “The Demons of Deborah Logan” (USA, 2014). Mia Medina, a medical student, is making an educational film about people with Alzheimer’s disease. Soon she meets Deborah Logan and plunges into a real nightmare.
- “The Empty Man” (USA UK France South Africa, 2020). A policeman is looking for someone responsible for the death of his wife and child.
- “Doll” (USA, Canada, China, 2016). Young Greta gets a job as a nanny for a good family. However, her ward is very unusual…
