Nerdly » ‘Night’s End’ Review (Shudder)

30th Mar2022

‘Night’s End’ Review (Shudder)

by Phil Wheat

Stars: Geno Walker, Kate Arrington, Felonius Munk, Michael Shannon, Daniel Kyri, Theo Germaine, Morgan S. Reesh, Lawrence Grimm | Written by Brett Neveu | Directed by Jennifer Reeder

Jennifer Reeder, director of the highly-regarded Knives + Skin, is back behind the camera for Night’s End, a film that feels very apt given the past few years – featuring a character who spends his time online, working from home (aren’t we all?). With the film’s plot playing out in a series of Zoom-like calls, given the lead characters apparent agoraphobia.

The film tells the story of Ken Barber, an anxious shut-in, who moves into a new apartment. He spends his time making self-help YouTube videos and experimenting in amateur taxidermy. However, Ken’s life is turned upside down by the apparent haunting of his new home. Eventually he contacts Colin Albertson, a paranormal author, to perform an exorcism which quickly takes a horrific turn…

Thanks to Covid filmmakers had to find new ways to make movies, with Host leading the way; capturing the zeitgeist of our new work from home and living on Zoom lifestyles. Night’s End takes things to the next level, combining the aforementioned tropes of online communication with traditional filmmaking techniques. Unfortunately for Reeder none of the online aspects of the film actually works. Yes, we know that that aspect of the film is supposed to be amateur, as would be the case of homemade YouTube videos, but the amateurish nature of this part of the film detracts from pretty much the rest of the movie!

Reportedly filmed under strict Covid conditions,in just 13 days for under $500,000, Night’s End feels very much like a film that was made under those conditions. Unlike Host, which overcame its limitations, Reeder’s film can’t escape the very confines it sets on itself. Plus Night’s End doesn’t have the cast, outside of Geno Walker’s central role of Ken Barber, to make this effective. Lawrence Grimm’s paranormal author, Colin Albertson, is a particularly terrible performance on top of a terribly written character. So terrible in fact that come the film’s big reveal the ENTIRE FILM feels like one big joke on both Ken AND the audience.

Reeder at least tries to make the film look interesting, playing up the visuals as best she can – bringing in glitches you’d see on streaming video to obfuscate and confuse proceedings. But again, come the film’s denouement, where the visuals should bring the wow factor, they look terrible – with cheap effects work that looks so low-budget you’d see similar in one of The Asylum’s early movies!

And Night’s End‘s conclusion? Wow. If the film itself was a letdown, then the conclusion was even worse… It’s a conclusion that reminded me of 1BR‘s disturbing final coda but here it just feels ridiculous rather than terrifying.