Tag: Brea Grant

For tonight’s October Challenge Horror review I’m checking out the Black Comedy Horror “12 Hour Shift” from Brea Grant. This stars long time Horror pro Angela Bettis, who I’ve been a fan of ever since watching Lucky McGhee’s “May” (2002). A talented actress that seems to struggle to find quality films to be in but has been in a few decent horrors over the years. Usually seen in McGhee’s movies, but this is a director I’m unfamiliar with so wasn’t sure what to expect.

Missing Organs.

The plot of the movie is basically a calamity of errors with added violence. Angela plays “Mandy” an overworked drug addicted nurse. Not only does she steal patients drugs she also runs an organ harvesting ring, knocking off the occasional patient so that a colleague can harvest the organs later and then sending them off to a local criminal boss “Nicholas” played by none other than former WWE champion Mick Foley.

Delivering these organs is her cousin (by marriage) “Regina” played by Chloe Farnworth, a complete plank of a woman with the IQ of a part of shoes and the morality of a psychopath. Most of the plot revolves around her antics. The rest of the cast is made up of a variety of eccentric characters (Because this is a black comedy so everyone has to be eccentric apparently) including former WCW champion David Arquette (Yes, that happened) as a cop hating psychopath. Regina having lost her delivery ends up on a bit of a killing spree in an attempt to replace the organ, but naturally messes it up every time. Since this was Mandy’s scheme she is left trying to fix it all.

Calamity of Errors.

The movie is set in 1999, but this really doesn’t impact anything at all in the plot. The soundtrack is far more modern and avante garde. If I’m not mistaken it is trying to imitate the style of “The Big Lebowski”, which may also explain the 90’s setting. I’ll say this up front though, if that was the intent it fails miserably. The soundtrack doesn’t really add anything or enhance the scenes and while Mandy is taking drugs, it’s not like in The Big Lebowski where he’s constantly being knocked out. Instead it just draws too much attention to itself.

There are several major problems with the movie. First of all, it’s a mess. Obviously a good part of that is by design, but most of the pieces in this mess are irrelevant, pop up to push the next calamity and then seep back into irrelevance. Perhaps part of the problem is the movie only ever focuses on Mandy and Regina and really makes the other characters feel two dimensional, overly goofy and downright incompetent. The level of incompetence is so high that it damages verisimilitude.

Wrestling With Demons.

David Arquette is completely wasted and his character could largely be removed from the film without that much impact. Mostly he he just pops up, waves a knife around and then the plot basically ignores him until it wants to pop him up again. When he eventually does something it’s dismissed easily and quickly forgotten. Similarly Mick Foley is horrendously underused. He’s actually pretty convincing in his role, but it’s kept so short it’s barely a cameo.

On the other hand Angela does a great job as lead and while Chloe overdoes her role somewhat, I think that is probably more direction/script than the actresses performance. I think she did remarkably well with what she had to work with. Her stupid and murderous antics are pretty entertaining in places. The big problem though is these are both terrible people. Chloe is effectively the villain of the story, but she’s so stupid that she doesn’t really drive any tension. It’s more just “What random stuff will happen next”.

Competence and Paramedics.

While we can sympathize with Mandy being overworked, living in her car between shifts and having to deal with all this craziness, we are constantly reminded that this organ harvesting ring is her idea and she is constantly stealing patients drugs. The plot hints at reasons why she may be so messed up, but does little else and because she is required to be the competent one, this largely conflicts with her constant drug taking and addiction. It seems she only gets away with what she does because everyone around her is completely incompetent. Perhaps the most incompetent is the cop that is called in after the first murder.

Overall, the movie has some amusing moments and there is some nice scene editing in places. However, it fails on most other levels. I never actually laughed at any of it or really felt any real tension. I didn’t care about or even like any of the characters and most importantly it didn’t draw me in enough to ignore how nonsensical most of the plot was. This movie is a 5/10. Not a total waste of time, but I wouldn’t go out of your way for it.