Last Shift (2014)
Last Watch Date - April 25, 2025
Total Times Watched - 1
Comments
I never heard of this movie before a few weeks back when someone recommended it based on my enjoyment of The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016). I can see why they recommended this, they're very similar in certain ways.
Let's start with what I did like about it: the atmosphere in this movie was pretty good throughout. A decommissioned police station is a pretty cool setting for a horror movie, a place that implies a power and order but in this case suffers from chaos and evil. The main actor (Juliana Harkavy) was good and pretty believable throughout. And the timing of the movie was solid. It was a pretty tight 87 minutes.
I had a lot of issues with the plot, mainly the fact that she keeps getting calls from .. I guess a ghost? and even after the main police station confirms that things are happening, she sticks around to play with them. This makes no sense. They try to pull her father's storyline into it but it makes no sense. It feels like a flimsy excuse to keep her in the thick of it when any normal person would get out as soon as it was confirmed to be haunted.
There were some pretty good visual effects, but some of them were so over the top that they became silly. I wanted it to be a bit more sinister overall, but it's never clear why things are happening. There's no real purpose. Maybe that's meant to be scarier? I'm not sure.
The ending was obvious from the outset. As soon as the clean up crew said they'd be late, you knew what was going to happen. It seems like they treat it as a "twist" but you'd have to be completely oblivious not to see it coming.
This movie was remade by the same director in 2023 as Malum. I'll probably try it out if it goes to a free streaming service.
Recommended?
No. While similar to the Autopsy of Jane Doe, it's no where near as well done. I think the fact that it's basically one person and their dealings with spooky ghosts makes it worse than Autopsy.
