Night Shift

Gwen (Phoebe Tonkin) is a newbie in the area. She has got a job working the night shift in an old grotty motel called the All Tucked Inn.

Thye owner Teddy (Lamorne Morris) wants someone urgently as he is on a date that night.

Gwen is creeped out of the place as Teddy was not expecting her early. He gives her a tour of the place. The place is not even deserving of a one star ranking on Tripadvisor. There is a sinkhole where the pool was. The cabins are rundown and there might be rats crawling about.

Later Gwen finds out that the hotel might also be haunted. Gwen is certainly having strange visions. Not helped that there is a news announcement of a dangerous prisoner that has escaped.

Night Shift is the directorial debut of the British twins, the China Brothers. It treads the well worn path of the psycho killer chiller.

It starts off unnervingly but becomes immensely predictable. It was never going to be The Shining or Psycho but rips off from both movies. It is well acted and for a low budget movie and it has good production values.

I was prepared to waste an hour and a half on a Saturday night with this one but it turned out this was pretty good for about two thirds of the film and easily worth six stars (or more). Solid acting by Phoebe Tonkin, Lamorne Morris, Madison Hu, and well, pretty much the whole cast. Everyone played their part with gusto on conviction. There really was a perfect balance between humor, suspense and apprehension throughout the film. My reason for 3 stars is 'the big twist' in the story. The last few minutes were a complete disaster IMHO and although the directors thought they were being clever, let's face it, we are not that dumb.

In 2023's Night Shift we are introduced to a young woman who is tackling her first night shift in a remote motel. When she was young her mother and her sisters got killed by a serial killer and apparently the motel is haunted. Therefore she spends most of the night walking around being scared of pretty much everything.

Sadly that is most of the plot. We get some side characters that don't have much to do and there are a few lame jumpscares scattered throughout the movie. The movie is pretty slow paced and there's not much to see, making it a rather boring watching experience. There are some humorous scenes that I didn't mind and also the acting was decent.

In the end I thought that the movie was pretty predictable and did not have any tricks up its sleeve. Also without spoiling anything I think the ending didn't make much sense but you can see that for yourself if you want. I think it's a below average movie that is slow paced and mostly uneventful, even though it has a semi-interesting premise. [4,9/10]

It's a low-budget film, with a simple idea, simple actors, not very interesting characters and little blood, however, it's entertaining as much as possible and delivers an interesting ending.

There are much better films that take place in roadside hotels, like Vacancy from 2007, but this film here is actually cool. It's simple, but not terrible. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the film often doesn't find its genre! He goes through a lot of comedy, drama, suspense and horror, and never gets what he really wants to get right.

As positive points, I highlight the main actress who works well in the character, the scare scenes with rats and the ending which is a bit surprising and fun.

Being a predictable movie could be a good thing, if you are the "I told you so", kind of person when you are at the movies, that is...if your friends can stand you.

The thing here, is that everything has been seen in other movies, series, anthologies and that is because it's always entertaining.

Motels, Hotels, no matter how big or small, expensive or cheap have that creepy atmosphere that makes your imagination run wild, just thinking about what is going on next door, could be exhilarating.

This movie is not Psycho, or The Shining, but it's entertaining and fun to watch.

A lot of plot holes, but I liked it.