Night of the Missing

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!

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.

"Night of the Missing" is a fairly typical anthology film -- it's a collection of random short films grouped together with a loose attempt at a common theme.

The movie begins with the discovery of a weird woman in a police station. The sheriff comes in and starts yelling at the woman (identified only as "The Woman"). The Woman says she wants to report a missing person, but instead of doing so, she instead looks at "Missing" photos hanging on the wall and tells the story of four of them, which lead to the short films.

The first one is a super-short film from 2020 called "We All Scream." It's about a boy who wants some ice cream. Short but pretty creepy.

The second film is a short from 2022 called "Nite Flirt" starring the beautiful Gigi Gustin (who gets a "Story" credit on it). This one is a little unusual -- Tammy (Gustin) goes about her business while weird, supernatural things happen. Then she is suddenly doing some sort of sex-talk phone service. Then that's dropped and we're back to supernatural stuff to finish off the short. Confusing as all heck, but Gustin is very appealing in her role (and definitely a force to be reckoned with in future films), and the short is satisfyingly weird and creepy.

Confusing is also a good word for the third short, 2020's "Miniature." "Miniature" stars Jenna Kanell (of "Terrifier" fame) along with Gustin again. They are really tiny and in a "Model Town" (think the model town in the attic of "Beetlejuice"). An intriguing little short, although no real connection to the overall theme of "Missing people."

The "Missing Person" theme is completely abandoned in "You Promised," the final (and weakest, not counting the wrap-around) of the stories. This drug-deal-gone-wrong story that morphs into the supernatural doesn't seem to fit in at all with the others.

We end up completing the Sherriff/Woman story, although to be honest, I really had no idea what was going on with those two. The whole wraparound story definitely left something to be desired and is the least effective part of the film.

I like short horror films, so I did sort of enjoy "Night of the Missing." Three of the shorts were good, and that's a pretty strong success rate in these type of movies. Check it out if you're a fan of these type of films.

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.