Warning: This article contains spoilers for Day Shift.With its well-rounded action-packed conclusion, Day Shift‘s ending ties up many of its storylines while leaving others to a viewer’s imagination. Bringing its own comic twist to the tried-and-tested waters of the vampire genre, Day Shift makes no prior promises of being different. Instead, it uses the well-trodden tropes of the genre to its advantage by spinning them into its unique slapstick yarn.
Directed by J.J. Perry of the John Wick fame, Day Shift centers on a hardworking father named Bud who disguises himself as a swimming pool cleaner when he goes out vampire hunting. He sells vampire fangs to provide for his family, until one day, the stakes get dramatically higher when he ends up killing a powerful ancient vampire’s daughter. As he struggles to make ends meet and protect his family from evil vamps, he crosses paths with unlikely allies and enemies.
Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco’s fun buddy cop dynamic is the primary driver of Day Shift‘s linear narrative. Other than that, Day Shift also captivates with its highly inventive action scenes that, time and again, also feature gimmicky cameos from Scott Adkins, Snoop Dogg, and Steve Howey. While its premise is pretty straightforward and almost has no loose threads towards the end, Day Shift leaves viewers with a few questions to ponder over when its credits start rolling. Here are the big questions from the Day Shift ending explained.
Day Shift’s Ending Explained
Determined to avenge her daughter’s death, ancient Uber vampire Audrey puts Bud in a corner when she abducts his daughter and wife. With the help of his newfound allies, Seth and Heather, Bud battles an entire army of vampires to save his family from the evil vamp. Snoop Dogg’s Big John also comes to his rescue and uses a secret weapon to single-handedly kill several vampires in one go. In Day Shift‘s closing moments, a white-knuckled showdown ensues between Bud (played by Spider-man: No Way Home‘s Jamie Foxx) and Audrey. While Audrey clearly has the upper hand over him, Bud manages to outwit her using the oldest trick in his vampire hunting book.
All ends well when Bud gets his family back and acquires enough vampire fangs to keep his family afloat. Seth, previously hired by the Union to spy on Bud, also takes Bud’s side and proves that he was well within his rights when he took on Audrey and her vampire army. Before the credits start rolling, Big John pops out of a sewer, which shows that he is alive even though it looked like he had sacrificed his life earlier in the Day Shift.
How Seth Survives Being Decapitated
When Bud finds out Audrey has turned Seth into a vampire, his hunting instincts kick in. As soon as Seth (played by Now You See Me‘s Dave Franco) gives in to his hunger for human blood, Bud shows no qualms about decapitating him since it is one of the few ways vampires can be killed in Day Shift‘s universe. However, to Bud’s surprise, Seth does not die and attaches his decollated head back to his body. Seth survival even after being decapitated is most likely because he was converted into a vampire by Audrey. Since Audrey is a powerful Uber vampire who cannot be killed by decapitation alone, Seth, too, acquires her abilities and becomes almost immortal.
Audrey’s Motives For Having Vampire-Killing Bullets Explained
Bud and Seth find vampire-killing bullets in Audrey’s storage, which is surprising since she is a vampire leader herself. While the true motives of the Day Shift character remain shrouded in mystery, an early scene hints that Audrey is striving for world domination and is gradually acquiring properties all over the San Fernando Valley to relocate vampires in the human world. Her plan does not come to fruition since Bud kills her long before she can execute it, but she was probably keeping vampire-killing bullets handy because her end goal was to snag the 700-year-old vampire El Jefe’s throne as the ruler of Los Angeles’ underbelly.
How Bud Defeats Audrey In Day Shift
Day Shift‘s opening scene shows that Bud always has a thin silver wire at his disposal. Before going head-to-head with vampires, he attaches the silver wire to doorways and then waits for the right opportunity to entice them into decapitating themselves against the silver wire. Since the movie stays true to many elements of classic vampire lore from Dracula, the silver in the wire proves fatal for most vampires and Bud’s little trick “always works.” It takes “wood through the heart and a silver to the neck” to kill an Uber vampire like Audrey and that is why Bud only lures Audrey to his silver wire after his wife stabs her with a wooden rod. As always, his strategy works out exactly as he had planned and effectively kills even a seemingly indestructible vamp like Audrey.
How Big John Survives Day Shift’s Ending
To ensure Bud saves his family, Big John shuts himself in with Audrey’s vampire army and tries to fight them all on his own. When he runs out of ammunition, he opens up his jacket to reveal a bomb-like weapon. Moments later, Bud hears a loud flash and assumes Big John (played by Snoop Dogg) gave his life to save the rest of them. While Day Shift never reveals how he survived, it seems like instead of using a regular bomb that would destroy him along with the rest of the vampires, he uses a UV bomb to kill the sun-allergic vampires. This explains why there’s a bright flash all over the cave when he triggers his bomb and wipes out all the vampires.
How Day Shift Sets Up El Jefe For A Sequel
Day Shift has no cliffhangers or post-credits scenes that point towards a potential sequel or spin-off in the future. However, if Netflix green lights Day Shift 2, it will likely portray El Jefe as its main antagonist, considering how the 700-year-old vampire has been mentioned several times throughout the film’s runtime. El Jefe is treated more like an urban legend in Day Shift — some think he is no more real than a fairy tale, while others know for sure he exists.
The vampire-killing bullets in Audrey’s storage and her sinister world domination plotting suggest that El Jefe is a lot more than a cock-and-bull story, and his presence in Day Shift 2 will spell even bigger challenges for Bud and his team of vampire slayers. Not to mention, there is a slight possibility that Big John himself is El Jefe given how he hardly flinches when a vampire bites his neck and already has weapons of mass destruction to kill vampires. If this holds true, Day Shift‘s entire plot was nothing but his scheme to destroy Audrey and her growing empire before she could even think about ending his reign and taking his throne.