What actually happens
A lake with a very strict swimming policy
The film is a documentary built from VHS tapes, with a frame story about scientists at Stamer University studying a shapeshifting being named Rory. Rory was found on top of a butte, and the scientists keep it in a small room with a television that plays exercise videos, because Dr. Spratling believes they can communicate with it. The first short, "No Wake," follows seven friends who drive an RV to Lake Evic, where five of them ignore the signs warning people away from the water. While they are water skiing, an unseen sniper on the shore shoots five of them. Four of them wake up again anyway, go back to land, and find the other two dead and the Roman numeral for seven painted on their vehicle in blood. They decide the lake revives anyone who swims in it, and they set out to get revenge as the footage ends.
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An earthquake broadcast goes off the air
The second short, "God of Death," is a fictional version of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. A news crew is preparing the morning broadcast when the quake hits and kills everyone except the cameraman, Luis. A rescue team of Eddie, Karla, Javier and Miguel helps him look for a way out. Javier is mortally wounded in an aftershock. The group finds a crawl space that leads to a room with walls of skulls and a statue of the Aztec god Mictlantecuhtli. Eddie is possessed by the god, who kills Miguel and then rips out Eddie's heart and eats it. Karla falls under the same influence, kills Luis and takes his heart as an offering, and she dies when the room collapses. A surviving reporter announces the date outside the building. Back in the frame story, Rory has started to copy a human body.
A virtual reality demo that cannot be uninstalled
The third short, "TKNOGD," is the one people dread most. A performance artist called Ada Lovelace opens a show in a theater and tells the audience that people have replaced God with a God of Technology. She demonstrates a virtual reality suit and headset, then performs an incantation to wake the God of Technology and calls it a myth. A mysterious entity appears on the screen and attacks her in the virtual world, and her real body copies every move: she is lifted, strangled and thrown. In the virtual world her hand is bitten off, and when she pulls off the gloves, her actual hand has vanished too. Next the entity breaks one of her legs, strips her skin and tears off the other. She dies screaming while the audience applauds, thinking it is part of the act. When her cameraman lifts the visor, her exposed brain and facial tissue have fused with the headset.
A water gun and a dream that keeps getting recorded
In "Ambrosia," the Wrigley family throws a party for their teenage daughter Ruth, who films it with her cousin James. A younger relative shoots her with a water gun he says a lady in an RV gave him. That evening the family reveals a tradition that Ruth has just completed, and her recording shows she shot seven people at a lake. When police surround the house, the family fights back and the police kill them, Ruth shoots James for being too frightened, and she is killed. She wakes up while a coroner examines the bodies, shoots the coroner, shoots herself in the head and survives, and the camera cuts to Robin, one of the lake victims, filling a water gun with lake water. The last short, "Dreamkill," starts as a first-person recording of a serial killer. Detective Wayne Johnson recognizes a murder from an earlier tape, and traces the tapes to Gunther, the son of his partner Bobby Blake. Gunther says he sees the killings in dreams. Bobby says his family can see the future.
The ending, explained
Wayne finds out that the two women in the tapes had accused Bobby of assault and stalking, and that the man was their lawyer. He asks Bobby to tell the truth, and Bobby shoots him dead and goes inside to commit the murder from Gunther's dream. At the police station Gunther sees the dream replay on the interrogation room camera and works out that his father is the killer. When police arrive, Bobby takes them down, and Gunther shoots him in the head from behind. Back in the frame story, Greyson leaves, and Rory wraps a tentacle around Newell. Rory kills Newell and Porter, then Spratling and the cameraman, after Newell's blood on Spratling's hand keeps the door scanner from reading his handprint. Rory drags the cameraman's body back into its room and moves the bodies like the exercise videos.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether V/H/S/85 has a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is V/H/S/85 scary?
Yes. V/H/S/85 is a 6 out of 10 with medium dread. It is a gory found-footage anthology where each short has a different kind of fear, from body horror to a shapeshifting creature.
How does V/H/S/85 end?
In the last short, Gunther shoots his father, who is the killer from his dreams. In the frame story, Rory kills Newell, Porter, Spratling and the cameraman and arranges their bodies like the exercise videos it has been watching.
Does the dog die in V/H/S/85?
No, no dog dies in V/H/S/85.
Is there a post-credits scene in V/H/S/85?
Nobody has confirmed whether V/H/S/85 has a scene after the credits.
What is Rory in V/H/S/85?
Rory is a shapeshifting being found on a butte and studied at Stamer University. In V/H/S/85 it copies human bodies, grows tentacles and eventually kills most of the scientists studying it.
