A Head Scratcher..."Last Shift"

Last Shift (2014)

Rated R

Starring Juliana Harkavy, Joshua Mikel,

Written and Directed by Anthony DiBlasi

The Story:

A rookie cop (Harkavy) is assigned the final shift at a police precinct that is closing the next day. She simply has to wait until a HazMat team shows up in the morning to collect and transfer some waste from the armory. Of course, there's a reason the precinct is closing...some really strange things have been happening ever since cult leader Michael Paymon (Mikel) and 2 of his followers committed suicide in the precinct.

Take John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, and change it so that it's ghosts that are attacking the station, not bad guys.

The movie, overall has an atmospheric and sometimes creepy vibe to it, but ultimately I found it annoying by the end.

Essentially, it's a Final Girl vs. The Bad Guy.

Unfortunately, the typical formula isn't followed and I was disappointed by the ending.

Harkavy does a great job carrying the film considering the focus is on her for pretty much the entire duration.

There were a few effective jump scares and some nice twists and turns along the way but otherwise, it gets hard to believe that our rookie doesn't just walk out that door and sit in her car for the rest of the night.

Harder still to believe that they assign a rookie to the station, considering what everyone else knows and they refuse to tell her. 

It's currently streaming on Netflix as of this writing.

I still can't get past the ending of the film, so I'm grading it accordingly. Your mileage may vary...

Final Grade: D+