Last Shift

I've been meaning to watch this for a while, and since it's October, seemed like time.

Overall it wasn't a bad movie. Nothing really too surprising in it...typical of this type of movie where you never know what may be real or in the characters head.

What was impressive was the use of light. Almost all of it is in a building with white walls and decently lit hallways, yet there are areas of pure darkness. Whoever did the lighting for this movie did an amazing job.

The whole movie just has a very uncomfortable vibe to it, but very few jump-style scares. (or at least not to me...I've seen so many of these I can pretty much call out when there will be one).

The main actress does a pretty good job. For the most part, she is the movie. She has an interesting job to play between scared and someone assuming she's tired. Other characters are such bit parts that you don't get much opinion, other than the guy playing Sgt Cohen. Guy nails being a jerk!

"And the commotion the next morning... I got a glimpse into their cell. And the bodies were gone. But...pure evil covered those walls."

My first thought after watching "Last Shift" was : "Damn, Jessica Loren surely deserves a medal for her perseverance". If I was in her shoes I would have abandoned that police station the first second while putting up my middle finger to Sergeant Cohen. I wouldn't stay there a minute longer. But despite all suspicious noises, apparitions and supernatural events, she remains loyal to her post. Is she afraid to fail in her task so she won't be allowed to join the force ? Or doesn't she want to be inferior to what her father meant as a police officer in the past?

I must admit however that it's been a long time since I've seen such an extremely creepy film, although everything is soberly portrayed and there's minimal use of special effects. A rookie is trapped in an office all alone without a living soul to keep her company. All she has to do is get through the night until a cleaning crew arrives in the morning to clean up abandoned evidence. The end result is a series of terrifying scenes, terrifying noises and disturbing images. The film even managed to scare the crap out of me sometimes. Something I'm normally totally immune for.

Despite it being a low-budget film and it all takes place in one place only, they still made very good use of (although well known) horror techniques to make a lengthy horror-trip out of it. Maybe that's already a minor flaw. It all took too long. But eventually it was scary and creepy with a threatening atmosphere and constantly ominous. Especially the gradual tension buildup was successful. The full story is patiently clarified. Although I'm sick and tired of paranormal movies, I was pleasantly surprised.

Juliana Harkavy carries the whole movie in a convincing way. The movie focuses practically entirely on her. Even the group of crazy devil worshipers who start to haunt Jessica can only be admired briefly. There was even a sort of "Sixth Sense" moment with the assistance of police officer Ryan Price (Matt Doman). I just wondered what the tramp actually had to do with it all. Did he just pass by in search of his shoes? A rather bizarre person who served as filling. And despite their brief appearance the three Paymon family members were convincing enough to conclude that this family was extremely insane. Bloodcurdling testimonies which leave nothing to the imagination.

Unfortunately, the end ruined it all again. Uninspired and in terms of originality certainly not of the same level as the rest of the movie. The rest was certainly of a high level. Both the structure of the story, the sound effects and the editing were excellent in this psychological terror film

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Starts solid with building a creepy atmosphere but after 20 minutes it becomes "Jump scare on Precinct 13". Actually, I don't hate jump scares and I think if used effectively and moderately this scare tactic can be terrifying and entertaining. Many successful films like Jaws, The Thing or Se7en use it marvelously and sometimes mediocre movies like The Exorcist III can earn a legendary status with a well-made jump scare scene. Last Shift isn't terrible at using jump scares. Most of the time the build-up is fine and sometimes instead of loud noises and quick editing you just see something sinister crawling behind the actress, but there are so many scenes in this film where Juliana Harkavy wanders around. Without a jump scare in the end those scenes would be just pointless and boring. I wish there were more scenes with Officer Price or phone conversations with Monica. It would be much better than watching the protagonist on a loop, investigating the same type of noises and seeing the same creepy images over and over again. The movie also suffers from the clichés of the genre and tries to explain some of them like why she isn't leaving the station or call for back up, why she thinks there is a logical explanation for the things she has witnessed but I think those answers come a little too late. Last Shift is still not bad for a low budget horror movie and at least it mostly uses practical effects instead of crappy CGI and it has pretty decent acting in it.

I wasn't expecting much from this film having read some reviews, but I really enjoyed it. Scary,jumpy and unpredictable.Some reviewers have criticised the acting of the main actress but I think she did a good job ;not easy to carry an entire movie by yourself and she had beautiful green eyes to boot. Was riveted by this film from the very start which managed to suggest nasty things to come without telling you why,what or from which direction.Good storyline and reasonable script coupled with a few chair arm-gripping moments and what more could you want? It just shows what you can achieve with some level of intelligence,dedication,imagination and skill even if your budget is limited.Producers of mindless Hollywood pap please take note.

So I think most people's main beef with horror movies nowadays are that they just aren't scary anymore. Personally I never really cared whether or not a horror movie was scary since it's very rare that a movie freaks me out in any way. But this flick caught me off guard and had me feeling pretty creeped out a few times.

I haven't really been a huge fan of Anthony DiBlasi's past films but he really did an excellent job with this one. The movie is centered around one character alone in a police station, so we aren't really treated to any great dialogue or anything, it most relies on scares and creating a terrifying atmosphere. Some of the jump scares didn't really land on my but what really got me was just the overall creepy feel of the film, the majority of the film keeps you in a very dark and dreary place.

This wasn't without flaws though, some of the effects were a little overdone and a lot of the main characters action were very facepalm worthy, but most of them were understandable to keep up the pace of the film. Also the main actresses performance wasn't perfect, but luckily the movie really didn't need to rely on her acting.

I really enjoyed this, it was a very nice surprise and I am glad that I stumbled across it.