Review:Last Shift (2014)
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob’s Blog..
This time I got a remake of a 1990 film that started the
horror subgenre that inspired The Innkeepers.
A Manson-inspired horror film centering around a
transitioning police station. Officer Jessica Loren has been assigned to wait
for a Hazmat team to pick up bio-hazardous waste from the station's armory. But
unbeknownst to Jessica, cult Leader John Michael Paymon has haunted the
department ever since he and two of this followers committed suicide a year ago
to date. And now, Jessica is about to find out how dangerous they can be when
she's left alone on this Last Shift.
The Last Shift
subgenre of horror started actually with the infamous grind house film, Day of
the Woman, aka I Spit on Your Grave In
this film a woman must survive against a gang of psychopaths. In 1990 this idea
was taken into the ghost genre of horror with the release of the first of many
The Last Shift films, which have a woman having to survive being stuck either
haunted business or government office location that has had a bloody past…
pretty munch The Shining meets I Spit on Your Grave. So far, from what I can
tell there have been six The Last Shift themed horror films that include the remake
of the first The Last Shift, which I’m
now reviewing as well as The Innkeepers, which I’ve already reviewed. All these films either have
a revenge subplot or a satanic one. They all have ghosts that torture and
either drive the female lead insane and eventually lead them to their death and
their souls being trapped in the location.
These films are heavy in jump scares and psychological
horror. The ghosts start out as looking human and are usually looking for the
person to help or theyprovide the person with their stories. But once the story
is told they turn malevolent. In the case of this film, Last Shift, as with the
original the filmmakers connected the story to a Manson-like cult that swore
vengeance on the main character’s family and it is because the lead character
who decided to become a police officer, like her father, that puts her into
this paranormal powderkeg. This is much like the main character in The
Innkeepers with her obsession with paranormal investigation.
Even though a lot of reviewers try to say the acting of
the lead actresses of these films are bad, I have to disagree. It is in the end
that the performances of these actresses that support the entire production,
not just the freaky ghost makeup. Without these actresses going heavy on
emotions and making the audience feel the feelings and stress these films
wouldn’t work as well as they do. It takes a special actress to go through the
amazing about of stress these roles can put an actress through. It is far less as
easy as they make it look. In fact I’ve
heard stories that some of these actresses have had to have therapy
after finishing one of these films.
So, with all this said, I have to say that the remake of The
Last Shift is REMAKETACULAR!!!
Keep on Creepin’ , Horror Bob’s Blog…
