Taglines: Fear never sleeps.
Night Shift movie storyline. While working her first night shift at a remote motel, a young woman, Gwen Taylor (Phoebe Tonkin), begins to suspect that she is being followed by a dangerous character from her past. As the night progresses, Gwen’s isolation and safety, however, are made all the more worse when she starts to realize that the motel might also be haunted.
Night Shift is an American horror thriller film directed by Benjamin China, Paul China and starring Phoebe Tonkin, Madison Hu, Lamorne Morris, Patrick Fischler, Lauren Bowles, Christopher Denham, Connor Price, Dennis William Grimes, David Carrera, Jess Varley and Ella Stabile. The screenplay was written by Benjamin China, Paul China.
Film Review for Night Shift
Night Shift, the directorial debut of Benjamin and Paul China, is akin to a sleight-of-hand trick. It definitely fools, but that’s only because the China Brothers, as they’re credited here, hold off on revealing vital pieces of information until the last possible minute. It’s not exactly impressive when a magician picks the right card at the end of an act that revolves around cups and balls.
The story is pretty standard stuff, but the filmmakers have a nice sense of humor about that familiarity. We meet Gwen (Phoebe Tonkin), a woman heading from parts unknown to a new life in a remote place. Who she is and where she has come from are important, of course, but that’s about all that can be said about character. The China Brothers don’t let us know a thing until much later, and any specificity might get one thinking ahead of the movie.
Having the character be a blank slate is a necessary strategy here, if only because the writers/directors are apparently aware enough to know an audience is looking for clues and cracks in the narrative. The screenplay here technically has no cracks, but that’s mainly because the foundation is a sturdy but miniscule block of the bare minimum.
Gwen arrives in this new place, drives immediately to an old and rundown motel, and prepares to start her first shift working at the place. Teddy (an amusingly droll and evasive Lamorne Morris), the owner, has a date tonight, and it’s a good thing Gwen asked about employment there, because the usual night clerk is having medical issues. He gives Gwen a tour of the place, from the lobby to the assorted cabins, and notes a few details that obviously will become important later.
The supply room, for example, only opens from the outside, and if Gwen doesn’t want to become trapped in there, she’d better make sure a brick props open the door. If things go wrong, the office door has a bolt lock, but Teddy can’t imagine anything going wrong. The motel has been in his family for three generations now, and he insists it has never seen any trouble—apart from the rats and a sinkhole that opened in the bottom of the pool. Yes, both of those come into play later, too, but does that really need to be stated?
The guided tour becomes a plot of a wandering one, essentially. Gwen does some cleaning, hangs out in the lobby, walks the property to check on things and the motel’s one guest, and keeps repeating the process with a few problems and complications arising. One is that a car drives past the motel, as the occupant seems to give Gwen a longer look than would be necessary for a possible guest. Another involves Alice (Madison Hu), the single guest at the moment, as she startles Gwen and ends up locked in the supply room with flickering lights and something touching Alice on the shoulder.
The one issue that really seems to matter, though, is that Gwen keeps seeing a pale, bloodied figure or two appear in front of her or on the security monitor. It first appears to us in the background of one of the cabins (number 13, by the way), rising out of the bed after Gwen receives a phone call from the supposedly unoccupied room. That shot might be the eeriest of the many attempts to create tension here, but without saying or hinting at too much, it might also be a big old cheat of the narrative’s terms. Since the China Brothers don’t really establish any specific terms beyond the notion that the motel might be haunted, it’s only in retrospect, after the entire narrative reveals itself to be one big cheat, that such a thought comes.
Beyond the issues of how the script delays and avoids vital information, we’re mainly left with a series of scenes of Gwen not noticing a ghost or one appearing directly in her view. The filmmakers play a little with the timing, staging, and soundtrack of those moments—but not nearly enough to make the jump-scares surprising or, well, scary. Once the movie establishes this pattern, the China Brothers stick to it in the most predictable, obvious ways.
Standing out here are the setting, which feels creepily isolated, and some moments of humor (In addition to Teddy, Patrick Fischler and Lauren Bowles play a couple of the worst of entitled customers, who conveniently disappear to keep the climax relatively manageable). Night Shift, though, is far too formulaic a horror show until the third act suddenly shifts to a different—and nonsensical—mode.
Night Shift (2024)
Directed by: Benjamin China, Paul China
Starring: Phoebe Tonkin, Madison Hu, Lamorne Morris, Patrick Fischler, Lauren Bowles, Christopher Denham, Connor Price, Dennis William Grimes, David Carrera, Jess Varley, Ella Stabile
Screenplay by: Benjamin China, Paul China
Production Design by: Susannah Honey
Cinematography by: Mac Fisken
Film Editing by: Bec China
Costume Design by: Joanna David
Music by: Blitz//Berlin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Quiver Distribution (United States)
Release Date: March 8, 2024
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