Night Shift

Gwen (Phoebe Tonkin) is a newbie in the area. She has got a job working the night shift in an old grotty motel called the All Tucked Inn.

Thye owner Teddy (Lamorne Morris) wants someone urgently as he is on a date that night.

Gwen is creeped out of the place as Teddy was not expecting her early. He gives her a tour of the place. The place is not even deserving of a one star ranking on Tripadvisor. There is a sinkhole where the pool was. The cabins are rundown and there might be rats crawling about.

Later Gwen finds out that the hotel might also be haunted. Gwen is certainly having strange visions. Not helped that there is a news announcement of a dangerous prisoner that has escaped.

Night Shift is the directorial debut of the British twins, the China Brothers. It treads the well worn path of the psycho killer chiller.

It starts off unnervingly but becomes immensely predictable. It was never going to be The Shining or Psycho but rips off from both movies. It is well acted and for a low budget movie and it has good production values.

Caught this on Prime during a rainy day and since there was nothing else on... Since I have seen Lamorne Morris on TV since Jeff Lewis remodeled his pool house, I was excited to see his newer work.

Here's my elevator pitch...chick traveling takes an under the table job working the night shift at a modern day version of the Bates Motel. Spooky antics ensue, chick makes friends with cutie Asian tenant chick, girl-bonding takes place...nothing to worry about, right? Wrong!!!

What's that sound, a ghost??? Maybe?

I won't wreck the ending for you, because honestly it's worth watching if you've got the time to kill. But don't expect any groundbreaking new storylines.

If you go into things with no expectations, you'll come out happy, it's really a fun, campy horror flick.

Lamorne, I need a ride to bingo Thursday, hmu!!!

It's a low-budget film, with a simple idea, simple actors, not very interesting characters and little blood, however, it's entertaining as much as possible and delivers an interesting ending.

There are much better films that take place in roadside hotels, like Vacancy from 2007, but this film here is actually cool. It's simple, but not terrible. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the film often doesn't find its genre! He goes through a lot of comedy, drama, suspense and horror, and never gets what he really wants to get right.

As positive points, I highlight the main actress who works well in the character, the scare scenes with rats and the ending which is a bit surprising and fun.

Being a predictable movie could be a good thing, if you are the "I told you so", kind of person when you are at the movies, that is...if your friends can stand you.

The thing here, is that everything has been seen in other movies, series, anthologies and that is because it's always entertaining.

Motels, Hotels, no matter how big or small, expensive or cheap have that creepy atmosphere that makes your imagination run wild, just thinking about what is going on next door, could be exhilarating.

This movie is not Psycho, or The Shining, but it's entertaining and fun to watch.

A lot of plot holes, but I liked it.

I was prepared to waste an hour and a half on a Saturday night with this one but it turned out this was pretty good for about two thirds of the film and easily worth six stars (or more). Solid acting by Phoebe Tonkin, Lamorne Morris, Madison Hu, and well, pretty much the whole cast. Everyone played their part with gusto on conviction. There really was a perfect balance between humor, suspense and apprehension throughout the film. My reason for 3 stars is 'the big twist' in the story. The last few minutes were a complete disaster IMHO and although the directors thought they were being clever, let's face it, we are not that dumb.