Open 24 Hours

This movie isn't going to be in any body's top ten anytime soon but it was surprisingly well paced and better than a lot of movies in this genre.

"Open 24 Hours" is a gory one-location, slasher-like, mystery-in-delusion indie horror, working decreasingly well on those levels in that order. Overall, it proved to be an all-around okay fourth horror feature from Padraig Reynolds, an indie director who seems to love the genre and his role in it.

Mary (Vanessa Grasse) has been through a lot, having escaped from the life together with a serial killer, and is now trying to start anew, still fighting trauma, paranoia and delusions. She lands a well necessary job in a remote gas station as a nightshift clerk, a place where all that can go wrong, will go wrong. The story, written to twist and turn, in the end turns out rather conventional as most of theories that came to mind took a turn to nowhere. The line between Mary's delusion and reality is continuously tried to be blurred, and everything ends in as much conclusion as in ambiguity, but in either case feeling a little underwhelming. In other words, "Open 24 Hours" 'fizzles out' towards the end as the second half gradually favors simpler tropes and actionable filler.

On the other hand, all is well in the horrors taking place in the gas station, for the entire cast provides rather nifty little performances, with the highlight inarguably belonging to Vanessa Grasse. Another satisfying and consistently good aspect of "Open 24 Hours" is its aesthetic coating, built from creative, handsome cinematography and a solid effort by the FX and make-up team. Though perhaps not in excessive amounts, gore hounds will find their desert served extra bloody. On the matters of sound, in my opinion the original score didn't really have an extraordinary touches, as it reminded lot of the musical palette used in a multitude of genre flicks. If musical scores can be described as cliché, this one kind of is.

While the set bar of technical qualities of "Open 24 Hours" never seem to diminish, the substance, or story, on a certain level, does. All in all Padraig Reynold's newest hooray in horror is an entertaining (enough) and effortful indie piece, flaws and some lesser turns included. My rating: 5/10.

Only if you love slashers you're going to find some substance watching this movie. It has several nice deaths and the setting is pretty cool. On the other hand weak script, acting and storyline. So, overall just an OK b type slasher.

Open 24 Hours is a fine little slasher based on a really old script (or a really old concept).

It is listed as a horror but it really isn't. While it has some good gory kills it would've benefited more from in-your-face brutality, just a little more bloody mess.

While small in scale, the film is mostly well done, nothing stands out in a bad way, except for probably pacing and run time. The first 40-45 minutes are just setting things up (which gets repetitive) and it takes them quite a long time to get to the ending.

Some of the supposedly scary scenes border on being hilariously funny, like almost satire level. But it's such a thin line I can't really tell if those were made funny intentionally or by mistake.

The film is mostly ok but besides some memorable funny lines nothing really stands out.

Good for a one-time watch if there is nothing else to see.

I think this deserves better than a 5. Okay, so it's not the most original movie I've ever seen, but it was still done pretty well. The acting was great (Brendan Fletcher is terribly underrated IMHO) and it kept me entertained. Also some really good gore, if that's your thing.