Rating: C-
Dir: Alan Scott Neal
Star: Jessica Belkin, Taylor Kowalski, Joji Otani-Hansen, Christopher M. Lopes
Nancy Osborn (Belkin) is not having a good day. She’s just found out she’s pregnant, after a casual fling; she’s late for her job as manager of the diner owned by her father; and when she arrives, she’s told she’s working the night shift with the skeeviest of skeevy co-workers. Barely has her shift started when a bunch of masked punks on mopeds show up and start causing trouble. She is able to drive them away, but the lack of support from the other employees frustrates her, and when the chef – the skeevy co-worker in question – continues to disrespect her, she fires him. Now she’s on her own. And guess what?
The punks are back, more belligerent than ever and out for blood. Hers. She calls the sheriff, who initially doubts her claims until he realizes the perps match those responsible for a bloody murder scene he just left. It doesn’t help much. And this is where things go differently from the home invasion or siege movie I expected. Perspective suddenly shifts, we rewind a few hours, and see how things unfold from someone else’s point of view. It’s a courageous choice, sidelining the person we’ve been following for an extended period, and putting a character we don’t know much about centre stage instead. I’m not certain it works, although I must admit, I’d kinda gone off Nancy, after initially feeling sympathetic to her plight.
It might have been the sequence where she’s dancing round the diner lip-synching to the shittiest punk song I’ve ever heard. [I Shazam’d it. “I’m Yer Dad” by GRLwood, who appear more famous for sexual abuse allegations than their music. Awkward.] But it was probably her shrieking, “Can you please not… rape me with your fucking eyes!” at the sheriff, for having the temerity to look at Nancy. I’d immediately have headed for the door at that: “You have bigger issues. Sort your own shit out.” The problem is, the replacement central character is likely worse still, being a poster child for a “Just say ‘No’ to crack” campaign. Without giving too much away, we discover the moped psychos are not quite who we presume, have a very different agenda, and some internal strife.
The two streams eventually come back together, for a final conflict which features one of the most ludicrous escape mechanisms in genre history. It’s indicative of a film which swings wildly between good (or, at least, interesting) ideas, and woefully bad choices. Arguably, the better ones are still undermined by questionable execution. For example, it’s okay to have a heroine with flaws. However, when you start thinking the masked, psycho killer might have a credible argument, you’ve probably gone too far with her negative characteristics. This feels like a case where a debutant feature is too smart for its own good. Something simpler, and less obviously trying to break the mould, might have led to better overall results.