18 & Over

After a tumultuous break-up, a woman trying to get over her ex-boyfriend at a remote house in the countryside where she can produce her adult livestream cam-shows by herself begins to feel that an obsessed fan has followed her to the house and begun killing those around her to be with her.

There's not much to this one but it does have a few likable factors. One of the main factors here is the general setup that provides plenty of potential while still allowing for some topical storylines. Being by herself while undergoing a quarantine session and engaging in a series of webcam chats with others that alerts a deranged stalker to her location and begins killing those around her cabin serves as a decent setup for what's going on here involving the gradual reveal of the figure lurking around the cabin as she tries to entertain her career and those who constantly appear around her. The various interactions that take place here while they go through the mind-games as who's trying to talk with her as the interactions here offer up the kind of intriguing setup for the few stalking scenes featured here providing some shocking ambushes with decent enough gore. These are what manage to make it enjoyable, although there are some big issues to be had here. The main drawback is the generally lackluster pace that never builds up much steam here since so much of what goes on is far removed from the kind of content the setup offers. With so much of the film not focused on the killer appearing but instead on either her watching a lame reality TV show that makes no sense or on strange men appearing at a supposedly remote and hard-to-access cabin in the woods, very little happens to remain interesting here. Since this material isn't interesting and features a ton of plot holes as well, this would be hard-pressed already before even taking into account the low-level tempo featured here. As this also leaves the killer so obvious it's not a surprise when it's revealed or their lame motivation because it never provides a chance to build up anyone else, there's a slew of big drawbacks here holding this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, and Brief Nudity.

Alone at Night (2022) is a movie currently available on Hulu. The storyline follows a young lady with an Only Fans type page who has her top client obsessed with her. She is quarantined and feels safe from her followers...until someone breaks into her house with a motive to either kill or kidnap her, or both. Can she stop her would be attacker and unmask whom would want to do this to her?

This movie is directed by Jimmy Giannopoulos (The Birthday Cake) and stars Ashley Benson (Springbreakers), Jake Weary (It Follows), Winnie Harlow (America's Next Top Model), Paris Hilton (House of Wax), Pamela Anderson (Barbed Wire) and Luis Guzmán (Wednesday).

This is one of the wildest and most random casts you will ever see in a movie. It's too bad the writing wasn't better so they could have been better utilized. The primary storyline had potential but the kill/attack scenes weren't that intense, gory or well done. The entire reality television subplot wasn't needed and really didn't add anything to the movie. The execution of the reality series was both funny and really bad at the same time. There are some scene with good use of lighting and camera angles and the cinematography was very clean, almost too clean for the genre. A little more grit could have been used throughout the movie.

Overall, this is an awful addition to the horror genre that I would score a 3/10 and recommend skipping.

This is a frustrating film. The horror film part is well acted, tense, and has good twists. But for whatever reason, there is an annoying reality show element that feels like it was clumsily added later.

The reality show-within-a-movie is a bunch of horrible social media folks and doesn't connect to the real movie in any additive way. Paris Hilton almost makes it win some irony points, but it never lands.

Keep your finger on FFWD and you can still get a decent experience out of this.

I'd love to see a 70-ish minute cut. Call it "18 & Over, The Good Parts Edition". I think I'll do a fanedit and come back to it in a few years.

I am a bit conflicted about "Alone at Night." It clearly has some problems, starting with the title itself. The movie was apparently originally titled "18 & over" and the movie itself still sports this title. The re-titling appears to be a last minute marketing change to try to convince people that the movie is different than it actually is, and it's never a good sign when a movie does that.

"Alone at Night" is the story of Vicky (Ashley Benson), a young woman who just broke up with her boyfriend and was kicked out of their New York home. She travels to the town she grew up in to stay at her cousin's house in an attempt to mentally recover, and she will have a week all alone at the house. She is also a cam-girl (her cam girl act involves putting on a purple wig), and so she figures she can spend the week camming and making a whole lot of money. And we spend the week with her as she cams, hangs around, and hears rumors of a killer nearby...

As I said, the movie has issues. She is supposed to be isolated, and yet there is a seemingly endless stream of men who just happen to stop by this distant house, and each one is more annoying than the previous. Pamela Anderson plays the local sheriff and sort of seems like she's supposed to be comic relief but never really fits. And there is a weird subplot about a strange "Pandemic Reality Show" starring Paris Hilton that we spend an inordinate amount of time watching (it's supposed to be Vicky's favorite show).

But for some reason I enjoyed it a bit more than I should have. I suspect some of that is due to Ashley Benson, who makes a very appealing protagonist. And I was able to figure out the killer from actual clues that were given, which is always nice.

Hard to really recommend it, but I sort of enjoyed it and there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. I know that's faint praise, but still...

This is all over the place. It doesn't know if it's a horror movie, or a campy horror movie, or a drama, or a black comedy. You can be a campy horror movie, you just have to commit to it. I want to say I have respect for ALL filmmakers and congrats on getting this made. I know how much work goes into making a full feature film. The problem is, this doesn't all fit together and there's too many voices. If it wanted to be campy it should have stuck with that the whole way through, but it kept switching up the tone and that didn't work. It made it unwatchable and very difficult to get through. Again respect for getting it done, but it could have been SO much more if the tone were all even.