Night Shift (2024)
Motel Hell!
Motels are among the most common settings for horror films, right up there with summer camps, cabins, and college campuses. But why? What is it about motels that make them inherently creepy?
Maybe it’s because of the natural disorientation that we feel when we’re staying overnight away from home. Deprived of familiar comforts, we experience a motel room as an alien world, complete with furnishings that we didn’t choose and a bed where countless strangers have slept. Who knows what dangers could be lurking inside?
Night Shift is about Gwen Taylor (Phoebe Tonkin), a mysterious young woman who shows up for her first day as the new night shift supervisor for a seedy, isolated motel. She is trained by the eccentric but friendly motel manager, Teddy Miles (Lamorne Morris).
Teddy gives Gwen a quick rundown of everything that she needs for her new job, including the motel’s nifty fire axe. Remember Chekhov’s gun? You know that axe is gonna be used to chop somebody before the movie’s over.
Teddy then bolts off of the premises, leaving Gwen by herself for the remainder of the evening. Why would a motel manager leave a brand-new employee totally alone during her first night on the job? Is he a psycho like Norman Bates? Nope. It’s simply because the movie’s premise won’t work if Teddy is there.
Underdeveloped Characters and Lots of clichés
Gwen spends her time checking in guests and cleaning motel rooms. Spooky stuff happens and she believes that a maniac from her past is stalking her. Night Shift does manage to muster some moments of tension, especially early on, but experienced horror watchers will be able to anticipate most of the scares.
Our downtrodden protagonist strikes up a quasi-friendship with Alice (Madison Hu), a spunky hotel guest. Alice adds a bit of humor to the film, but she’s basically just the “snarky sidekick girl” character that we’ve seen in a million movies.
Phoebe Tonkin spends most of the film with a blank expression on her face, as if she’s pondering how she ended up in a movie like this. None of the actors are given much to work with. Their characters lack depth and development. It’s difficult for us to care about any of these people.
Night Shift is riddled with every lazy horror cliché in the book. Even the rusty old “main character gets startled when supporting character puts a hand on her shoulder” jump scare gets trotted out.
Of course, we also get phone calls with nobody on the other end of the line, rats coming out of the ceiling, ghosts popping up suddenly in the background, and characters doing nonsensical things because the movie requires them to be idiots in order for the storyline to progress. The scariest thing in Night Shift is the used condom that Gwen finds in one of the motel rooms.
Night Shift springs a huge twist on us during the second half. The twist is surprising, to be fair, but it’s also illogical. This movie’s script is a plot-hole ridden house of cards that collapses into complete ludicrousness.
How it compares to other motel horror movies
As I alluded to earlier, Night Shift is part of a long tradition of horror movies set in motels and hotels. There are two main types of subjects in these movies: spirits (The Innkeepers, The Shining) and stalkers (Psycho, Vacancy).
Night Shift attempts to be a hybrid of the two. Unfortunately, it fails on both accounts. The ghosts are rarely frightening and the movie’s true villain – which is revealed during the aforementioned plot twist – is not particularly convincing.
Rating
It’s competently made on a technical level and has a decent cast, but Night Shift is too clichéd and illogical to add anything to the motel horror subgenre. Not recommended.
Rating from 1 (avoid at all costs) to 10 (masterpiece): 4
