Night's End

I thought it was a little bit campy, and maybe that's what some of you were missing? It had gusto, and I enjoyed that. A couple of the characters were totally wacky and entertaining.

Haters of this movie will probably tell you to go watch The Conjuring, then give themselves a high-five.

A bigger budget does not always result in a better film, if the heart's not there. I thought this one was just fine, thank you.

One twist, about 4 minutes before the movie ended gave me hope by the time this Night does End, it may tie everything together and save the movie.

This did not happen and so, I've rated this the rare and dreaded 1/10 stars. I almost rated it a half-star more for the cast trying their hearts out in this micro-MICRO budget movie that cut costs and corners everywhere. But really, these people weren't trying. Unless they thought they were on a Disney Channel, G-Rated scary special aimed at toddlers.

Do NOT watch this waste of 81 minutes. It's so boring, so poorly acted and must've brought up a half-dozen pieces of character development that goes nowhere.

The movie's about a newly divorced introvert who has friends he video chats with and a YouTube channel just starting out. Caught on one of his videos is an object falling on its own and let the dullest ghost story ever filmed come alive.

Took me a few seconds to realize one of our lead's friends is Michael Shannon. And so, I thought, oh, you'd just do anything like Bruce Willis, Liam Neeson and Nicolas Cage. Difference for me is: I avoid those other three sell-out movies like the plague. This, I just thought was an indie I'd help support only to find poor Michael Shannon in his absolute worst movie.

The movie had promise and the lead, Geno Walker, was probably the best actor in the movie. Sad, his character had potential and it was squandered. Hopefully, this cast/crew will go onto better things and improve. This may just be the rough start they needed to learn from these mistakes.

Hell, even the name was a mistake. It meant...nothing.

***

Final Thoughts: I'm addicted to YouTube and it's sad when it's slandered like this. They should sue.

Night's End is a clear Covid project about a shut in who communicates with concerned friends via Skype. Our lead is played quite well by Geno Walker. He is a depressed, down on his luck man living by himself trying to start a YouTube channel about being divorced, yard work and more. When spooky happenings occur in his apartment he gets noticed and has to push the envelope.

The film is is fairly slow paced but had me interested enough to know what was happening. Problem is that the script doesn't have anywhere to go other than predictable places you expect. You will call the ending with plenty of time to spare.

The acting outside of our main character in the last 20 minutes of the movie is among the worst I have seen in a long time. There are "scary" parts that got an audible laugh out of me and one character screams like he was auditioning for Trolls 2.

Also the restrained budget this movie clearly has also is a big problem. You kind of know what WON'T happen because it would cost too much money. I also think this is an issue for the performances as it almost feels rushed.

So a weak script , no money and bad performances come together to make one of the worst endings in a horror film this year. This is definitely a skip.

I think if Jennifer Reeder expects to get funding to make another movie she probably should start by taking her name off the credits of this piece of garbage and replace it with "Allen Smithee". It's a complete abomination. Never have I seen acting and writing so amateurish, SFX so poorly executed, a plotline so preposterous and enough cheese to cover the entire moon, all in one movie. It's not even in the "it's so bad that it's good" catagory. It's just bad. Period. And how they got the great Michael Shannon to appear in this mess is anyone's guess. Seriously, there is literally not enough negative adjectives in the English language to convey just how awful this movie is. You have been warned.

It starts off your typical haunted house, I've even seen the set up with the blogger picking up weird events before. Which works even though it's not super original. They have video calls to introduce other characters, which also works in the situation to make things a little bit more interesting. I really liked the other super natural bloggers.

But it takes a turn that I didn't expect, and it actually surprised me. The budget isn't high, but I think they do well with what they had. The CGI at the end is terrible, but I don't think it takes away from the enjoyment.

It's not an "amazing film" but I had fun with it, and enjoyed it. The bad guy is a bit "muhahaha evil" which does change the tone, but I liked the surprise thru brought.