Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jennifer Reeder
Starring: Geno Walker, Kate Arrington, Felonious Munk, Lawrence Grimm, Michael
Shannon
Focussed on a single central character who never leaves their apartment
and communicates with others through his laptop,
Jennifer Reeder's Night's End may never reference
Covid, but it's very a product of the pandemic. While lockdown era
horror movies like the earlier Shudder original
Host
doubled down on having their action play out entirely on computer
screens, Night's End finds itself caught in a no man's
land, part conventional haunted house movie, part screenlife
thriller.
Like Steven Soderbergh's product of the pandemic,
Kimi, Night's End features an agoraphobic protagonist. Ken
(Geno Walker) has moved into a new apartment far from his ex-wife
and their daughters following a breakdown that resulted in him losing
his job. Refusing to leave his home, Ken orders his food from the web
and naively sets about becoming a YouTube star, uploading videos on
a variety of topics from lawn care to man management, none of
which he seems particularly invested in.
Ken also likes to dabble in taxidermy, and while recording one of his
videos, he notices one of his stuffed birds fall from a shelf as though
pushed by an invisible hand. Egged on by a friend (Felonious Monk), Ken jumps to the conclusion that his new home must be haunted. Doing
some research he discovers that a woman previously committed suicide in
the building. Contacting a paranormal author (nominative determinism's
Lawrence Grimm) and the host of a supernatural YouTube show (Daniel Kyri), Ken is manipulated into dabbling with things best left alone.
Initially, Reeder and Walker do a good job of establishing the rut Ken
has gotten himself stuck in. His monotonous morning routine of coffee
topped up with Pepto-Bismol serves as a clever way of illustrating his
descent into paranoia, as the ratio of coffee to Pepto-Bismol gradually
increases in favour of the latter with each passing day. Director and
leading man help us get into this character's troubled mind, but once
the spooky stuff kicks in the film's tone takes a turn towards
cheesiness. Grimm plays his sinister author so broadly that it's
difficult to buy into his character existing in the same film as Ken.
Michael Shannon adds some star power as the new husband of Ken's
ex-wife (Kate Arrington), but he looks directionless in his few
scenes, as though they were shot at short notice in a single afternoon
when he suddenly became available. His presence among a cast of
otherwise relative unknowns only serves to take us out of the drama
every time he appears.
Night's End is so reliant on Ken's zoom conversations
that you can't help but wonder if Reeder might have been better off
following the lead of Host and having her entire film play
out on Ken's laptop screen. There are too many cheap storytelling
shortcuts here, with characters on Ken's screen too often doling out
exposition as they conveniently fill in his backstory.
Kudos to Reeder for bucking horror tradition and giving us a male
protagonist, proving that a burly bloke can generate as much empathy as
a dainty babysitter. Ultimately that's the only really notable element
of Night's End, a by-the-numbers haunted home thriller that descends into
unintentional laughs in a climax dogged by cheap special effects.
Night's End is on Shudder from
March 31st.
