Are… are we serious right now?

I’m upset.

Probably need more than that right? Okay, so I decided to have a “Cop horror movie night,” with a friend since we both had horror flicks we’ve been meaning to watch that oddly enough, center around police work. The first we watched was the Scottish film Let Us Prey, which I thought would be a steaming pile of horse shit. It actually ended up being pretty damn good. So, naturally we move on to my pick: Anthony DiBlasi’s Last Shift.

This film is the story of a rookie cops first night on the job which consists of looking after the old police station for its last night. Turns out the place may or may not be haunted by this Satanic cult family that was taken in there years earlier. Either way, shit gets real. Real bad, real convoluted, real random, real predictable, real dumb, and above all, the film gets real to watch.

Seriously, fuck this movie. The only thing I could say after watching this damn thing was “Diblasi now owes me an hour and a half of my life back,” I plan to collect you son of a bitch, I’m coming for you.

Where do I even begin? Tonally I suppose. Well the tone of the movie tries to be all cerebral and suspense scares at first. After all, for most of the film it’s just Officer Jessica Loren (played by Juliana Harkavy) wandering around the police station. Long panning shots of blank, boring to look at hallways with some “spooky” music build up to a whole lot of nothing. The pay-off for most scares culminates in something laughably dumb. “OH NO! A ROLLING CHAIR! HOW TERRIFYING!” No movie, no it’s NOT terrifying, it made me roll my eyes and crack a joke at you! Most scares in the first half of the film end up like that.

At about the halfway point, Last Shift just kind of gives up and starts becoming your standard paranormal horror flick. A lot of jump scares, cheap looking gore effects and stupid make up jobs abound in this segment of the film. There’s a plot twist too, which I called at about the fifteen minute mark. That’s how predictable this shit is. FIFTEEN MINUTES IN. I guess I won’t spoil the surprise, but it has to do with Officer Loren’s family history regarding some Manson family rip-off case. Trust me, it’s predictable and insulting. It’s almost as insulting as characters just randomly being inserted to spout exposition. Yeah that happens a lot. Two whole characters whose ONLY PURPOSE is to spit out some backstory to you. Show and don’t tell movie, come on! This is basic shit!

The acting is alright. If there is any bright spot in this steaming wad of excrement, it’s the actors giving 100 % to this joke of a movie. There’s only seven actors in the whole shebang but each of them give the best performance they can.  That’s really the ONLY good thing I have to say about this. I’m just sorry that all these actors had to be in this travesty. I’m giving this movie the boot man:

Don’t see this film. Ever. You’ll thank me later, trust me. Go see Let Us Prey if you want a cop horror film that’s actually worth your time. I’m going to go hunt down DiBlasi and punch him right in his stupid scumbag face. Have a nice day.