The Shed Ending Explained: What Happened To Stan & Roxy

Summary Stan and Roxy are the last survivors, but their fate is uncertain due to their exhaustion and the relentless vampires.

Stan's crush on Roxy may have been their downfall, distracting them from the obvious solution to surviving the vampire threat.

The Shed ending offers social commentary on the impact of high school bullying and how it can lead to irrational and dangerous actions.

Director Frank Sabatella's 2019 horror movie, The Shed, adapts a simple premise with an open ending that left audiences questioning the safety of the heroes and wondering what happened to Stan and Roxy. The Shed takes standard-issue vampire movie tropes and tucks them behind a smart, character-driven feature film. Stan (Jay Jay Warren) is an orphan who thinks he's dealing with the normal high school woes — bullies, unrequited crushes, and an overbearing grandfather — until he realizes that a vampire has taken up residence in the shed on his property.

The Shed then descends into a nightmarish bloodbath when people start falling victim to the trapped creature and Stan's best friend, Dommer (Cody Kostro) starts to see Stan's problem as a solution to theirs. By the film's climax, Stan and his crush Roxy (Sophia Happonen) are fighting to defend his home against the vampire and its thralls come nightfall. While most of the movie takes place during daytime hours, when the vampires are less of a threat, there's still a high body count, action, gore, and shocking moments that lead right until the ambiguous The Shed ending.

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What Happens In The Shed Ending

Stan & Roxy Are The Only Survivors

Vampire movies and television were a staple of the early and mid-2000s, and while there are many different approaches in dealing with these creatures, The Shed manages to bring something new to the table. The fact that the vampire is trapped in Stan's shed might seem like a no-brainer, but Sabatella's movie explores the very human conflicts that coincide with this unlikely scenario. Stan is unsure of what to do with the creature at first, and his fear keeps him from acting immediately and doing something logical, like burning the shed down.

Ultimately, Stan and Roxy are the last two standing, and nurse their injuries in a car before Roxy mentions that it's soon to be nightfall again

His dog and his grandfather are the vampire's earliest victims, but after he tries to ask his friend Dommer for help — especially since there's a body on his property — he's surprised with Dommer's answer. In Dommer's mind, this terrifying situation is really to their benefit: they can sacrifice their high school bullies to the monster, or use it to threaten them. However, Dommer's lust for power and revenge gets him turned into a vampire, and the bullies come sniffing around Stan's property right at dusk, looking for their leader Marble (Chris Petrovski), who was one of the Vampire's first victims.

Ultimately, Stan and Roxy are the last two standing, and nurse their injuries in a car before Roxy mentions that it's soon to be nightfall again; they think they've seen the last of the vampires, but as the final shot pans out on the trunk of the car, it's apparent that they're not alone. They missed one. It's an unfortunate oversight, but a realistic one insomuch that a movie about a vampire trapped in a shed can be realistic.

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What Happened To Stan & Roxy (Did They Survive?)

Stan's Crush On Roxy Was Probably Their Downfall

Stan and Roxy are, from the beginning of The Shed, the two most likely characters to make it out of the movie alive. Stan is not only the lead protagonist, but Roxy immediately steps into final girl territory by helping him board up his house, and even manages to help fight off a vampire after he accidentally throws a knife into her shoulder, wounding her. It's their shared tenacity that drives the climax of the movie, and they're arguably the only two likable characters. However, despite their best efforts, they probably still didn't make it alive post-credits.

Their feral strength and speed makes them natural hunters, effective killing machines, and Stan and Roxy probably don't stand a chance.

The reason for this is simple: they're both exhausted, they're wounded, and the vampires in The Shed are not weak by any means. Visibly, they seem to resemble more of the classic vampire looks, like Nosferatu and Kurt Barlow from Tobe Hooper's TV adaptation of 'Salem's Lot. They're more predatory, less charismatic, and certainly hungry for human flesh. Their feral strength and speed makes them natural hunters, effective killing machines, and Stan and Roxy probably don't stand a chance.

However, if they happened to notice the vampire in the trunk — which was alluded to, but not confirmed — before sunset, they might stand a chance. The vampires in The Shed seem to be very weak to sunlight, which is proven in the very beginning. The first vampire wraps himself up to scamper to safety in the closest available building he can find after being turned in the movie's opening scene: Stan's shed.

Since sunlight is such an obvious weakness, not just in vampire lore, but in The Shed, all Stan and Roxy would need to do in order to ensure their safety is just open the trunk and let the sun shine in.

Since sunlight is such an obvious weakness, not just in vampire lore, but in The Shed, all Stan and Roxy would need to do in order to ensure their safety is just open the trunk and let the sun shine in. However, given Stan's crush on Roxy — and the fact that they're both clearly happy to be alive — he's distracted. Even before, when he knew about the monster in his shed, he didn't act quickly. There was a point where he started to react by drilling holes in the roof, but he didn't follow through.

There were numerous opportunities during The Shed where Stan could have ended the vampire early, could have told someone what was going on, and probably prevented the majority of deaths in the movie. This character trait can easily be chalked up to the logic that, if he had acted rationally from the get-go, there wouldn't be much of a movie, but it could also bolster the efficacy of the final shot: Stan's inaction will ultimately be his biggest failure, and it'll get him and Roxy killed.

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The Real Meaning Of The Shed Ending

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While it's a simple vampire movie on the surface, The Shed ending subverts expectations and has a deeper meaning behind it. The Shed's ending serves as a cautionary tale. Stan's curiosity about the creature and hesitation to act swiftly and be done with it opened up a host of other issues — and new vampires — to contend with. Beyond that, it showcases how bullying can cause people to act irrationally.

High school bullying can drive otherwise stable people to commit unspeakable acts.

Neither Stan nor Dommer are bad people, but when faced with the opportunity to get revenge on their tormentors by sacrificing them to a monster (it's not really murder, in Dommer's opinion), it's tough to do the right thing. Stan is more hesitant about it than Dommer, who is clearly more affected by the bullying, but he also doesn't stop his friend until it's too late. He's the hero of the story, but gets gridlocked by indecision, which ultimately might lead to his demise.

The ending of The Shed is, in this way at least, a subtle piece of social commentary. High school bullying can drive otherwise stable people to commit unspeakable acts. This message has become even more poignant since the movie's release in 2019, as violence and homicide in educational settings continues to be on the rise, and bullying is often a factor cited in the motivations of perpetrators. While The Shed isn't directly social satire, it does go out of its way to flip many vampire movie tropes on its head, and in doing so manages to convey a clear message that very much applies to real life.