The 2023 production of Night Shift is old fashioned scary and, up to a point, blackly comic. Although to be fair there are some outright funny moments in this fledgling film. Directed by the China Bros, this deserves a much better rating than offered on IMDb. Although Rotten Tomatoes gave this one a 76% critic ranking.
Night Shift also has a pretty splendid twist hidden in the tale.
The Story
Gwen starts her first night working at a seedy motel. She later learns that the place is haunted from her new pal Alice. Night Shift follows her adventures working a solo position in an inn that gives Motel 6 a good name.
The “All Tucked Inn” has rats, a haunted room and the lobby where guests check in, is full of taxidermied animals. Including a bear that the regular manager calls “Yogi.” Yogi falls off the wall at inconvenient moments.
The main cast
Phoebe Tonkin is Gwen. A stressed out mess who should be working anywhere but here.
Madison Hu is the runaway.
Lamorne Morris is the regular manager of the motel.
The Tagalongs
Patrick Fischler is Warner, a rich jerk with more money than manners.
Lauren Bowles is Birdie, Warner’s wife. Also, like her husband, someone lacking in manners.
Christopher Denham is Walton Grey.
Connor Price is Cole.
What works
First time directors Benjamin and Paul China (Born in Gt Yarmouth in the UK) take bits from a number of horror films to make this work. They take something from Identity. Shutter Island even makes an appearance here.
A dose of Vacancy with a clear nod to Psycho. The China Brothers manage to mix these “homages,” if you will deftly and with a panache that is admirable. The film loses nothing by borrowing, sometimes liberally, and sometimes with just a slight nod, all the aforementioned horror films.
They mix in a touch of black comedy and offer a twist that I, personally, did not see coming. This is a splendid first effort. The cast, the script and the atmosphere are just brilliant for a feature that has a rumoured production cost of around $500,000.00.
A half a million dollars is not quite “low/no budget” but nowadays, it is darned close.
The film scares satisfactorily and that twist is the icing on the metaphorical cake.
the Verdict
This award winning film *It won Best Genre at Mammoth Film Festival 2023.* is a hardy 4 star effort. With an Emmy winning actor in an opening, and closing, cameo (We are talking Lamorne Morris here, for his Outstanding Supporting Actor award here for Fargo. I watched that season and he deserves this one, hands down.) Night Shift is a low budget pleasant surprise. It is streaming on Starz.
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