Night Shift has all the makings of a generic horror movie. An eerie motel occupied by eccentric and troubled guests, and a spooky, single-night story reliant on the female protagonist’s anxiety and paranoia. It’s understandable if more selective audiences would rather check out than stay. However safe brothers Benjamin and Paul China play their first co-directed feature, they also incidentally create a strange amount of comfort for certain viewers like myself. This movie engenders nostalgia for a bygone era of routine horror followed by a bizarre twist.
As promised by the movie’s title, Phoebe Tonkin‘s character Gwen goes to work once the sun goes down. All Tucked Inn’s owner, Lamorne Morris‘ Teddy, has left everything in Gwen’s care so he can go on a date one evening. And like clockwork, the novice employee succumbs to the isolated location’s creepiness over the course of the night. Gwen’s terror is straightforward enough — weird sounds, ominous phone ringing, moving shadows — but everything changes once she becomes curious about Room 13, the one unit that’s been discounted on account of superstition.
The motel room in question naturally sticks with you while trying to figure out the overall mystery. Is the place haunted or not? The China Brothers do a solid job of keeping you on that path; they even convince you that maybe All Tucked Inn has a supernatural effect on its guests. The late arrival of one memorably unhinged and stuck-up couple, played to the max by Patrick Fischler and Lauren Bowles, are proof enough of the roadside lodging being a hub of uncanny energy. The story eventually veers off course, and that decision is welcome. The new route isn’t any less paved with clichés, but it helps keep an already engaged audience on the hook. Night Shift‘s foreseeability notwithstanding, the movie is good at building suspense and maintaining intrigue.
While not a guaranteed dealbreaker for less desensitized horror enthusiasts, Night Shift‘s lack of creative scares will undoubtedly be seen as a demerit for those more seasoned fans. Gwen and the motel’s only other guest, a runaway played by Madison Hu, endure the whole of these so-so fright sequences, such as being locked in the supply closet that Teddy explicitly mentioned earlier. There are also plenty of moments where something spooky happens behind Gwen’s back. The set-pieces don’t deliver noteworthy shocks and spills, although they do keep the energy up as well as fight the inevitable monotony inherent to one-location stories.
These days in horror, there is more to consider than complete originality. And while the China Brothers’ dependency on hoary tropes can be seen as a hindrance, they also use that predictability to their advantage. Just when you are complacent and ready to write this one off as too conventional, the movie hurls a seismic revelation at you. This development is more organic than first realized; there are clues, in retrospect. Again, novelty is nonexistent, but this specific kind of plot curveball should please fans of early-2000s horror. That narrative shift qualifies at least one visit to the All Tucked Inn.
Tales from the Paulside 
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