The Overnight

I think it was more challenging to make this movie as bad as it is. They had to really try hard to act soo poorly. The plot and sense of direction is purely lost. The ending is so bland. Even the special effects, which consist of fake blood, black blood and contact lenses are so garbage. I had to fast forward this junk.

I must admit that I initially liked this movie's cover/poster, and it was the reason for why I took a gander at it. Now, I can't claim that I had heard about this horror movie from writers Mel Hagopian and Richard Harlost prior to sitting down to watch the movie, so I didn't have any expectations really, nor did I know what I was in for.

And the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough, further cementing me sitting down to watch the movie and give it a fair go. And so I did, but I have to say that the movie was not an entertaining one.

Sure, the storyline starts out okay enough, but the narrative quickly comes to a stand still and then just settles into that slump and never gets back on track. And that makes for a rather monotonous and bland viewing experience. And truth be told, then the movie was suffering somewhat from having a low budget feel to it.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "The Overnight", but they did good enough jobs with bringing the story and characters to life on the screen. It was just a shame, though, that the actors and actresses didn't really have much to work with in terms of a properly entertaining storyline and script.

If you enjoy horror movies, then I would not really recommend you waste your time, money or effort on "The Overnight".

My rating of directors Bobby Francavillo and Kevin Rhoades' 2022 horror movie "The Overnight" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

After an accident disrupts their trip, a couple finds themselves stranded at a strange hotel where they notice the strange behavior of the guests staying there are caught in a time-loop brought about by a demonic curse on the building requiring one of them to be sacrificed and must try to get away alive.

This one wasn't all that great and had some big issues with it. The main drawback on display is the generally unappealing and highly dragging pace that makes for a truly unengaging feature to get into. This takes forever to get going as hardly anything that attempts to bring about a sense of comfort to the heroes makes them likable, with a lame trip to an antique store that goes nowhere to taking forever to realize the car troubles mean they're stranded in the countryside at the hotel and is helped along in no small part by the utterly asinine storyline of the couple that has no business being together with her career as a social media influencer and his disdain for the whole experience. That means constant digs at her for doing her job that doesn't come off as friendly couple banter and is all that they do together which makes their connection all the more confusing beyond taking up time to get to the point of everything. That comes into even greater focus, though, when it transpires that the whole thing makes no sense in the slightest. The whole idea of the demon haunting the building and instilling the series of time-loops to take place with all the guests who are stuck constantly reenacting their final moments before dying would've been fine had it brought these elements together in a matter that comes off cohesively. Instead, the whole thing is chaotic and random with no entry point into how it all comes together, what each of the various guests is doing there, or what the manager's purpose in being there actually is since his role seems to be far more horrified at the thought rather than being involved and steering everything along. That makes for an absolutely confusing time throughout here with absolutely nothing coming together to make sense, and when combined with a plainly-obvious series of low-budget limitations that creep up brings this one down significantly. There really isn't that much to like here, and it's pretty much reserved for several small areas that don't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. The biggest plus here is the overall atmosphere of the hotel which makes the scenes here quite suspenseful in theory with the various maladies and situations that arise. From seeing specters of dead children, patrons walking around with mortal wounds, and others flat-out killing themselves in front of him, there's a creepiness that comes through here aided by the lack of explanation for everything. That also makes several of the ghostly death interactions and confrontations somewhat suspenseful as everything that takes place here has the potential to be creepy in some context but doesn't really count in this context as the idea of what's going on is mostly undone by the vast majority of flaws on display.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

'The Overnight' is about a young couple who go on vacation, but end up staying the night in an old hotel which turns out to be haunted... or full of ghosts, or demons, or something.

First of all one half of the couple (the woman) just isn't that likable. Perhaps it's me being old and grumpy, but I can't stand the younger generation who are always on their phones taking selfies, so she rubbed me up the wrong way right from the start.

Anyway, the hotel itself is nice. From what I've read online it's not a set, but a genuinely run-down hotel which was used for filming purposes, so it fits the bill for a creepy environment. But the whole thing just takes a while to get going. At least forty-five minutes of the hour and a half runtime are just taken up with the couple bickering and experiencing events which are - only slightly - spooky.

Sure, the acting isn't too bad, but there isn't much here that's either creepy or gory - which doesn't bore too well for a film that's supposed to be 'horror.' The film looks okay from a technical point of view and at least it doesn't come across as cheap, just a little unfocused. I couldn't really work out what the general threat was - it could have been ghosts, or possession, or suicidal entities seeking revenge. Who knows?

Yeah, there's the obligatory 'fight for their lives' in the final act, but it's too little too late. Plus as there's only two protagonists to begin with, you know that nothing much is going to happen to them until the absolute end. There's just not enough here to particularly recommend.

The first part of a story should have something that make the main characters likable or something we can identify with.

It is better to invest in a good makeup artist than just bying some cheap contact lenses at Amazon you see at any rave party.

Laughing children with some ketchup stains are not scary. Speaking latin is not scary. Wearing a black hoodie is not scary.

Black goo, can actually be scary, but it have to be in context and with some explanation.

Now there are actually some good nuggets in this mess.

Having 3 bad guys with different objectives is actually a really good one. This would add to the story if their different goals would clash more, how would the stalker react if he saw his lady being sacrificed ?

The house with ghosts repeating their last day as living, is also a good one - if only there were a reason to follow the clues to how that day was and what order it happened in. If the couple had found a diary, some pictures adn so on.

Moaning in a movie must be distinct enough so we understand what the characters hear, and what belongs to the soundtrack. The creaking of the floor in the beginning was very clear and effective, we heard a second creak from the left, and understood there were someone there. Why would this be dropped in the rest of the movie ?

There is more but brings me to the final nail in the coffin for me in regards of this movie, it lacks any subtlety. Any form of building suspense is soon destroyed here with some closeup, wobbling of camera or straight blurry fighting scene.

This might be ok, in your filming of the action in riding the rollercoasters at Disney, last vacation there - but is out of place in a thriller or horror.