Night Shift

Working her first night shift at a remote motel, a young woman discovers that not only is the motel haunted, but her stalker may have found her too.

The All Tucked Inn is a 20 Room motel in the middle of nowhere.

And sure, yeah, there’s a back lot full of old dusty abandoned cars, an empty pool due to a sinkhole, a strange sedan that slowly cruises by, and a woman who can be seen entering the lobby, only for the lobby to turn out to be completely empty, and yeah, okay, Room 6 is the only room with a paying guest, and when they answered the door, their fingers were bloody, and also, the door to Room 18 keeps creaking slowly open on its own, while Room 13 keeps calling the front desk, only for a voice to laugh evilly on the other end when the phone is answered, and also, maybe the worst thing of all, while changing the sheets in Room 8, there was a used condom left in the bed, plus there’s a whole bunch of rats in the supply closet too, but still… that doesn’t mean it’s a “creepy” hotel.

It’s a cash job, so... whatever, am I right?

Yes, the position is as the overnight clerk, all alone, by themselves, all night long, even on the very first night, but hey, on the upside, the best (and only) Vietnamese restaurant in town (It’s Pho-king Delicious) will deliver Pho all the way out there, so that’s great, right?

Look, bottom line? Gwen just arrived in the area, and she needs money, so now it’s her first night on the Night Shift, all alone at the All Tucked Inn. Besides, there’s a fire ax on the wall next to the vending machines, if she needs it.

What could go wrong?

That’s when the problems start.

There’s definitely some ghosts wandering around the property. Whether they’re walking past just on the periphery, prank-calling the front desk, showing up on the security cameras, climbing out of the sinkhole, or cornering Gwen behind the desk and screaming at her… it’s a bit of an upsetting experience.

Plus, there’s her stalker. Y’see, Gwen has a dark past. When she was younger, a drifter named Walton Gray came a’calling. He killed her mom and sisters, and only Gwen survived. Now, she’s on the run because Walton Gray has been released from prison, and despite her efforts, he seems to have found her.

But much like the All Tucked Inn, there’s more to Gwen than first appears…

Night Shift is a nice little ghost/horror story.

It’s fun, it’s funny, it looks good, it’s got some good scares, it capitalizes on its creepy motel setting in the best way, and there’s a couple of sequences involving the hotel telephones and its security cameras that are really creepy. It doesn’t quite all work, but for the most part, it comes close enough, I think, especially for a film that’s only 82 minutes.

That said… Lamorne Morris, who plays Teddy, the owner and otherwise the sole staff member at the All Tucked Inn (who is also fantastic as Winston Bishop in the sitcom New Girl), is criminally underused in this film. On top of that, the fact that Teddy hires Gwen, then leaves her in charge of his entire motel that very night, all within 15 minutes of meeting her, is the most unbelievable part of this whole ghost story. I mean, Gwen is a clearly a twitchy drifter who’s on the run from something. If it was me, just going off their first meeting, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a serious applicant who would seem more unlikely to last their entire shift, who also seemed less likely to take the cash box with them when they split, then Gwen does. I mean, I get it, Teddy hasn’t had a night off for himself in who knows how long, and he's really looking forward to getting laid by his lady friend, but still… having him hire Gwen, hand her the keys, and then leave, boom-boom-boom, was a hard pill to swallow. Also, it’s too bad Teddy wasn’t around more in general, because he and Gwen were pretty good together.

But this is the film’s main issue. Other than Gwen, it barely develops what few other characters it has. Plus, being that it’s a motel, other people do pass through the place, like, for instance, a pair of shitty condescending white people looking for a place to hook up, but after being nothing more than a pretty vanilla sex joke, they leave. They basically have nothing to do with the main story. They’re don’t even get killed by the ghosts for being terrible people. They just show up, make a scene, and then they leave. The end.

It’s such a weirdly pointless little tangent too. There’s nothing really added to the story, especially in light of the ending, and as I said… it was all done in the service of a pretty unsurprising, and really vanilla, sex joke (Gasp! BDSM!). The whole thing made me wonder if maybe the script originally had a couple of different late night weirdo asshole customers showing up, which then forces Gwen to juggle the more typically shitty perils and pains of customer service as a neophyte front desk clerk, all while also dealing with the more atypical work issues that come with this particular motel, like all the ghosts, and her stalker. But instead, at some point, all of the customer interactions were edited out of the movie except one?

I don't know if I'm right or not there, but I wish I was, and that also they hadn't cut out the other customers too, because the mix of supernatural and mudance horrors would've been nice.

There's also a twist at the end of Night Shift.

It's well done, sure, and it makes things nice and bloody at the end. But it’s not really much of a surprise, and at the same time, it’s a little too unearned and out of left field for the story. The reveal also raises similar issues with the main character, not to mention the entire story, much like the end reveal in the film High Tension did, where the truth only really meant that the previous struggles were pointless. It’s not as bad here as it was in High Tension, but it’s definitely awkwardly done.

Also, all the stinger ending adds to the film is to show us what a more interesting and maybe more fun version of this film could've looked like.

Ah well, c’est la vie.

I think once you realize that this is the feature film debut from a pair of sibling directors, Paul and Ben China, then it all makes sense. For a first attempt, this is a noble failure, an “almost, but not quite,” but it’s good enough that I would check out their sophomore effort.

Until then, save this one for a lazy afternoon.