Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alan Scott Neal
Starring: Jessica Belkin, Jeremy Sisto, Taylor Kowalski, Joji Otani-Hansen, Christopher M. Lopes
Home invasion thrillers have been around for decades but in recent
years we've seen the rise of workplace invasion movies. In such films,
(usually beleaguered) employees find themselves fighting for their lives
while being menaced at their place of work by various forces, either
supernatural or human. Notable examples include Green Room's punk band vs Nazis; a gas station attendant vs her serial killer
boyfriend in Open 24 Hours; Hunt Her Kill Her's factory janitor battling masked assailants; and Nicolas Cage and
Josh Hutcherson fighting sentient animatronic children's entertainers
in Willy's Wonderland and Five Nights at Freddy's. In Alan Scott Neal's directorial debut Last Straw, the workplace primed for a siege is a small town diner, the heroine a
young waitress.
19-year-old Nancy (Jessica Belkin) feels her life is going
nowhere. She's still grieving the death of her beloved mother a few years
ago and resents her father, Edward (Jeremy Sisto), for re-entering
the dating game. Having flopped at high school, she's now stuck with a
community college course in which she has little interest. Her dad has
made her the manager of the family diner, but it's a role she lacks the
maturity to handle. And to cap everything off, she's just learned she's
pregnant with no clear idea of who the father might be, though she
suspects it's her co-worker Bobby (Joji Otani-Hansen).
When Nancy arrives at work for her shift she's greeted with bad news. Her
dad needs her to work the overnight shift. If this wasn't bad enough,
she'll be accompanied solely by cook Jake (Taylor Kowalski), a
recovering addict Nancy despises. It's initially unclear exactly why Nancy
hates Jake, as he seems affable enough, even making an excuse about
rotting meat causing her to vomit to conceal her pregnancy for her father.
Nancy quickly forgets this gesture and later fires Jake on the spot when
he quite rightly points out that she's only his boss because her father
owns the joint. This leaves Nancy all alone in the remote diner for the
night, and when a group of troublemaking teens she earlier kicked out
return clad in masks, Nancy finds herself in a fight to survive the
night.
That setup should be tempting enough, but if you're the sort of viewer
who insists on something a little more original you'll be happy to
know Last Straw has more up its sleeve than its simple teen waitress vs masked
maniacs premise might suggest. Roughly halfway through, the movie jumps
back in time and switches perspective away from Nancy and onto another set
of characters. This extended flashback takes the film into more grisly and
uncomfortable territory than the neon-lit and synth-scored siege thriller
we had been given up to that point. Last Straw becomes something of a takedown of the limitations of American
small town life and the evil it can breed with its inequality and lack of
opportunities. It has the sweaty desperation and violence of the work of
cult filmmaker Jim Van Bebber and the uncomfortable morality of an S.
Craig Zahler film.
The ostensible antagonists are fleshed out in a way that suggests they're
victims themselves, of drugs, of domineering leaders, of an inability to
stand up to the former. This makes the final act, when Nancy uses her
resourcefulness to take them down, a lot more indigestible as we now know
that some of the people she's forced to inflict violence upon are far from
stereotypical bad guys. One particularly daring and shocking moment
recalls the murder of a mentally disabled man by the vengeful heroine
of I Spit on Your Grave.
Perhaps the most audacious aspect of Neal and screenwriter Taylor Sardoni's film is their portrayal of their heroine. Nancy may share her name
with one of horror's most famous Final Girls, but she's far from the
demure innocent archetype that label usually suggests. With her petulance,
promiscuity and cold-hearted ways, Nancy has more in common with the
blonde who gets butchered halfway through a slasher movie. But the
excellent Belkin plays the role in a manner that suggest her nihilistic
attitude is a coping mechanism, that she wants to break down and cry but
refuses to let the world see her vulnerabilities. By giving us such an
abrasive protagonist and humanising its antagonists, Last Straw dares to see how we react. But for all her flaws, we're ultimately
on the side of Nancy, hoping she survives the night and emerges into the
dawn a better person for her ordeal.
Last Straw is on UK/ROI VOD from
September 23rd.
