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.

"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.

No pun intended - I reckon some would like them to remain missing. People or stories you ask? Well I'll leave that up to you. I would agree that the shorts have a different quality - some are better some are not so good. Still overall the feeling (from me at least), if you like horror movies/anthologies ... well you could do worse than this.

Acting may not always be the best - especially and unfortunately our two main story tellers (one more than the other), but if you can suspend your disbelief ... there is a supernatural element here. But that is based on the stories that are told - so maybe we still are in our reality here ... in the end: suspension of disbelief is what will work best ... low budget and it shows ... still some interesting ideas to say the least.

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.

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.