Name: Last Shift (2014)
IMDb: link to IMDb
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| Officer Loren |
Genres: Horror, thriller Country of Origin: USA.
Written and directed by: Anthony DiBlasi.
Cast: Juliana Harkavy as Officer Jessica Loren, Joshua Mikel as John Michael Paymon, J. LaRose as Patrick Black, Natalie Victoria as Marigold, Sarah Sculco as Kitty Paymon, Kathryn Kilger as Dorothea Paymon, Mary Langford Polley as Birdie, Jeremy S. Brock as Police Interrogator, Amanda Defrance as Crime Scene Girl, Matt Doman as Officer Ryan Price, Hank Stone as Sergeant Cohen.
The Three Acts:
The initial tableaux: Officer Jessica Loren starts the night shift at a Sanford police station that is just about to be decommissioned. The Sergeant Cohen gives her a short pep talk, then leaves her. The 'bump in the night' phenomena show up almost immediately. Even though the telephone number for the station has been rerouted, she gets calls from a little girl, Monica. Doors open. A homeless man sneaks in somehow. The men's room is plastered with excrement. The reports the calls from Monica to her superiors, and calls a waste cleanup service to clean the facilities. The poltergeist action continues. When she calls for backup against breaking and entering, her radio connection fails.
Delineation of conflicts: Officer Loren would like the nonsense to stop. Whatever happened to trigger the supernatural activity, seems to want something, but what? The prostitute Marigold drops by, and Officer Loren sets about to roust her from police property. Marigold is very chatty, and relates to Loren the story of a want-to-be Manson family, the Paymons. It just happens that Jessica's father was part of the police team that took out the Paymons. The story Jessica heard about the Paymons while growing up was not the story that Marigold experienced in a cell near the Paymons before they died.
Resolution: The usual cliches for this generic situation seem to be in force. What does Officer Loren have to do to end the disturbance of those causing the supernatural activity? That is, end the psycho, beyond-the-grave actions of the dead Paymons, and the suffering of their dead victims.
One line summary: What she does not know may hurt her.
Statistics:
a. Cinematography: 8/10 Focus, framing, and depth were fine, but I could have done without the overexposure that was present in many scenes.
b. Sound: 7/10 No problems, and the jump scares were not overdone. On the other hand, the background music did not contribute too much in the way of creepiness.
c. Acting: 7/10 Juliana Harkavy is in about 95% of the scenes. She was much better than I expected, and I can think of many actresses who would not have done as well.
d. Screenplay: 8/10 I rather liked the story, which keeps the viewer guessing until the end.
Final rating: 8/10
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