MovieChat Forums > Last Shift (2015) Discussion > Great idea. Poor execution

Great idea. Poor execution


A rookie cop spends her first night on duty as the sole officer at a police station that has just permanently closed. As her shift gets underway she starts to see and hear things that make her think she's not alone. Her belief that 'old hands' are playing a prank soon gives way to suspicion that the building may be haunted.

Good atmospheric setting, good story, good central performance from Juliana Harkavy, but it doesn't quite work. Individual elements that with someone like James Wan could have been fantastically creepy, somehow fail. With figures passing behind objects, yet failing to emerge from the other side, objects repositioning themselves with impossible speed, there are obvious influences from The Conjuring and Poltergeist (to name just two). There's also heavy inspiration from John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. Sadly, it's a pale imitation of all of these. It does get better in the last 15 or so minutes, but not enough to save it. 5/10

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“It does get better in the last 15 or so minutes, but not enough to save it.”

I see it the opposite. The opening 30 minutes reek with creeping dread, then at about the 40 minute mark the movie begins to tip its hand and loses steam. There are still a few surprises, but the carefully crafted atmosphere is mostly lost.

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i kinda disagree with both of you!

i just like it and i like it all the way through.

i agree that it's no classic, it's certainly not as good as assault on precinct 13 or as good as james wan's better films.

but it's pretty good. properly paced, creepy in spots, nicely executed all the way through.

it's a very solid 3 - 3.5/5 horror/thriller. nothing i'll rhapsodize over, but something i'm happy to have watched & will probably throw on every year or two when i happen to notice it's streaming somewhere.

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It's being remade by the same director, releasing next week titled Malum.

I did quite enjoy this film but from memory it was a bit hampered by the low budget so we'll see if they can improve on it here with a bigger budget. From what I gather this is also an expansion of the original plot, it's not a straight remake, more of a reimagining.

I think the director wasn't too happy with how Last Shift turned out due to budget constraints, he feels like he didn't make the film he wanted to.

Here's the official trailer for Malum;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-XXwPgg4iE

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Interesting - thanks for the heads-up!

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I just found out the director just released a remake of the same film 'Malum' (2023).

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