Last Straw

After discovering that is pregnant, the waitress of the diner Flat Bottom Bistro Nancy Osborn (Jessica Belkin) drives to work but her old car breaks down and she needs to walk. She gets a bicycle ride from a co-worker and arrives late, and her father Edward Osborn (Jeremy Sisto), who owns the diner, calls her attention since he has just promoted her to manager. He assigns her to the night shift and goes to meet his girlfriend. When a group of masked teenagers driving mopeds arrives at the diner to disturb them with pranks, Nancy pretends to call the police, and the guys leave the place but promise to return later. However, the employees Jake Collins (Taylor Kowalski), his retar.ded brother Petey (Christopher M. Lopes), Bobby (Joji Otani-Hansen), who has a crush on her, and Coop (Michael Giannone) do not help her. They have an argument, and Jake offends Nancy and says that she is the manager only because the diner belongs to her father, and she fires him. During the night, Nancy stays alone and out of the blue, she is scared by masked men. She calls the police, but they are not able to immediately come since they are attending another case, and they believe it is a prank of teenagers. However, Sheriff Brooks (Glen Gould) arrives at the diner to calm Nancy down and does not give much attention to her. But when she mentions the mopeds, the Sheriff immediately asks her to go with him to his car since he has just come from a massacre of teenagers with mopeds. But he is killed by the masked man with a hammer and Nancy runs and hides herself. Who are the killers?

"Last Straw" (2023) is a gore slasher directed by Alan Scott Neal with an interesting screenplay divided basically in two parts. The first part follows Nancy, and the second part follows the crack-addicted killer and his crew and his slaughters. The subplot of the pregnancy of Nancy and the last scene are poor and a waste of time. The special effects with gore are great. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

I would have given this a 7/8 had it not been for the essentially braindead and completely unnecessary last 20 minutes. It's not the worst thing ever so would recommend giving this a view but the end was completely illogical. The acting was good, the story was good but the ending really spoils it. Everything that was built before was 'realistic' as far as a horror movie can be including decisions by characters etc but then they just decided to just mess it up by making the well woven main characters do things that completely takes you out of the movie and say 'wait, why, wtf'. The director could have done really well with this but decided to trope out.

Low budget does not always mean bad movie. I admire the guts of takes to put it all together let alone act and direct and so forth. However. Why make the lead character so unsympathetic and obnoxious? Dont you want the audience to sympathize and root for your lead characters? When you succeed in making them annoying AND stupid, no one cares about them. In some cases the audience may take the side of the bad guys. That is exactly what happens here. And this is BEFORE the reveals that are supposed to make our opinion change about the characters. Maybe some more script polishing was needed to bring this up to par. Still worth watching but couldve been better.

What starts out as a 'siege' thriller develops into something rather original in its dissection into small midwestern lives of bored teenagers with nothing to do, ampted up on meds for bio polar and depression , smoking crack for release, and with limited funds; it also works as a pertinent tale of pranking gone wrong . Something young people should see and learn from!

It may bore those looking for gore and masked intruders looking to settle scores but that would be derivative , what it proposes is how these bored teenagers act- ok it ain't Rivers Edge but it's sharp and different.

The chilly photography and sparse soundtrack work well and whilst the title Last Straw works the (?) original title 'The Late Shift' works better.

As far as crime-horror-thrillers go...this isn't half bad.

Though, it's quite cliche.

The whole story takes place in, and around, a diner, run by a man and his daughter, in a small town, where oppourtunities aren't exactly omnipresent.

So, when a series of events leads to one of the employees getting fired...things get a little out of control.

Which is to say, an understatement.

As one thing leads to another...and violence ensues.

The whole thing is entertaining enough, but it's certainly not without it's faults.

Because, on top of ruining the mystery far too early...the "twist" is ridiculously implausible.

And kind of ruins the whole last bit of the film.

The film then ends on a note that- while it does make sense- really forces you to dig deep in order to grasp the meaning.

Which I feel flies over most viewers heads.

As it seems, almost randomly, thrown in as the conclusion.

That being said, it's not a horrible film.

Even if you don't "get" the ending...you can still be entertained by the violence-laden journey, in a mindless sort of way.

But it's definitely not great, either.

As, like I mentioned above, I think clarity will elude most viewers.

4 out of 10.