Night of the Missing

After arriving at a deserted police station, a distraught woman catches the eye of a small-town sheriff with her tales of the subjects behind the wall of missing person posters.

Generally, this is a pretty serviceable and enjoyable short-burst anthology effort although its format does present it with some issues. The general quality of the setup and the way the shorts play out isn't bad, with the rushed introduction to the strange woman wandering into the station and the condition she's in sets this up quite nicely for that kind of burgeoning mystery to get unraveled by the time the main stories proper start. This sets up the rather likable and somewhat chilling, with the first two especially being quite worthwhile as the young kid who disappears stopping at a questionable ice cream truck, and the second featuring a young girl who answers a phone-sex call from a serial killer. These both offer a lot of shocks, practical effects, and a generally fun time packed into a short running time. While there's nothing overtly wrong with the other two segments, one about the residents of a seemingly-perfect town with a dark secret for how that came to be and a man determined to be with his true love regardless of the circumstances, don't have much physically wrong with them but it's more the fact that they're so short they leave a ton of questions at the end of them. The third segment doesn't have any time to answer practically any of the endless questions that arise at the end of it, from how the town works to what the purpose is beyond numerous others, while the last one is tantalizingly obscure about its target given the framework for the anthology clashing with the resolution offered. This here really could've used more time to make its setup work or just let the world in play breathe since the segments are so short, but it's not that big of an issue here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Typically my reviews' main criticism is a)the acting b) the cinematography. This movie actually did really well in those two categories. Where it fell super short was category c) the sense. This movie is well acted, professional looking, and even slightly humorous at times (the "ron Jeremy" "cameo" had me do a double take! LOL!!). But none of the stories connected with the others,and either ended abruptly or confusingly. And that was a major disappointment,because this movie could have been a hidden gem with better cohesiveness. What happened to the man with the cookies?? (Intentionally being vague to avoid spoilers). Could have been really good if the stories were actually finished and linked. But a decent watch.

Acting was good, cinematography is well done and professional. But the way things were acted made everything feel like it was mocking itself and a comedy that wasn't funny, but just lame. The writing seemed to be an outline then improvised. Felt like this film was trying to me mic too many other films all at once. Less about missing people as it portrays in the title and the beginning and more about random idiots killing it the most awkward and meaningless ways possible.

I have witnessed scarier things and more amusing things on the daily commute home from work.

Like I said, the camera work and acting was well done, unfortunately the writers (if any actually) and directing phones it in.

Ok what the heck is this movie even about, there's literally no plot and there's no point or moral to the movie. How does it connect to the beginning and the little boy and who are the people that randomly show up with random scenes???? It's not even that scary first of all and the scenes with the blonde girl are disturbing and sus. If i were you i would not watch this movie and never ever even think about watching it. Idk what u guys are on about by eating this above a 3... it makes me so mad that the scenes cut and show random people and random things. And why won't the fricking girl tell the detective who she is!?!?! I hate this movie with all my guts. How the heck does this connect to christmas, and why should a movie like this revolve around christmas, christmas should be happy and fun. I don't like it but you do you.

I watched this without knowing it's an anthology, so I dived right in.

The first story, also the shortest, was quite well done honestly, had a lot of effect. After that one I realized there are more than one movies here, but I kept going and going. Even tho I am not a fan of these kind of mini series, I had fun with Night of the Missing.

It's a production that looks quite good, nice vibe to it, interestingly enough, original stories here, everyone involved did a really good job. Thus I shall recommend it because you too might get a kick out of it.

But it is important to be a fan of anthology movies otherwise this might be a swing and a miss.

Cheers!