Rookie officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy)is assigned to work the last shift at a police station before it is due to close. This seemingly routine task soon turns into a nightmare when the 'lone' officer starts noticing paranormal activity within the police station.

Part of the beauty with the Last Shift lies with its simplicity - it essentially takes place in one location and attempts to use its isolated setting to try and draw fear from the audience. I suppose it succeeds in this respect to a certain degree, but there are a whole host of problems with this film....

The isolated setting does serve the film well in the early stages in that there's a sense of claustrophobia to proceedings and it is possible to feel some fear for our protagonist, but sadly director Anthony DiBlasi doesn't seem to know how to develop the story in a manner that is either scary or interesting (many of the scenes are repetitive and start to become tiresome). Whist the film has a solid protagonist it does lack a decent antagonist (meaning that it never really felt that scary to me). In fact it is the laziness inherent in this film that makes it so dull (as well as featuring scene after scene that makes the whole film feel as though it's on some kind of tedious loop at times, the film also has other unimaginative sequences such as a pile of chairs being stacked on top of one another - how many times have we seen this before???). Even when the antagonists are introduced, DiBlasi mostly reduces them to being rather thinly drawn caricatures who spend most of their time pouncing at the screen in rather cheap 'cinematic' fashion - a better developed backstory on the Paymon family might have made the film slightly more interesting.

Whilst DiBlasi's narrative is dull and repetitive I got the feeling that he was trying to compensate for this in other areas; he really went to town in the makeup that he used on the Paymon family (some of it is actually quite good),but again it felt like he was content in making them 'look' scary rather than actually making them scary (there is a difference).

Julian Harkavy is the main bright spot in this tedious mess and she is very convincing in her respect role. She gives an incredibly intense performance when required, she's a tough cookie who can handle herself, but has a certain vulnerability about her which helps to keep the picture fairly grounded.

DiBlasi seems to lose control towards the end where things start to get silly and the film is chocked full of WTF moments towards the end. With its isolated setting this could have been good, but it's clichéd, repetitive, tedious, and long sections of it are rather boring.

"And the commotion the next morning... I got a glimpse into their cell. And the bodies were gone. But...pure evil covered those walls."

My first thought after watching "Last Shift" was : "Damn, Jessica Loren surely deserves a medal for her perseverance". If I was in her shoes I would have abandoned that police station the first second while putting up my middle finger to Sergeant Cohen. I wouldn't stay there a minute longer. But despite all suspicious noises, apparitions and supernatural events, she remains loyal to her post. Is she afraid to fail in her task so she won't be allowed to join the force ? Or doesn't she want to be inferior to what her father meant as a police officer in the past?

I must admit however that it's been a long time since I've seen such an extremely creepy film, although everything is soberly portrayed and there's minimal use of special effects. A rookie is trapped in an office all alone without a living soul to keep her company. All she has to do is get through the night until a cleaning crew arrives in the morning to clean up abandoned evidence. The end result is a series of terrifying scenes, terrifying noises and disturbing images. The film even managed to scare the crap out of me sometimes. Something I'm normally totally immune for.

Despite it being a low-budget film and it all takes place in one place only, they still made very good use of (although well known) horror techniques to make a lengthy horror-trip out of it. Maybe that's already a minor flaw. It all took too long. But eventually it was scary and creepy with a threatening atmosphere and constantly ominous. Especially the gradual tension buildup was successful. The full story is patiently clarified. Although I'm sick and tired of paranormal movies, I was pleasantly surprised.

Juliana Harkavy carries the whole movie in a convincing way. The movie focuses practically entirely on her. Even the group of crazy devil worshipers who start to haunt Jessica can only be admired briefly. There was even a sort of "Sixth Sense" moment with the assistance of police officer Ryan Price (Matt Doman). I just wondered what the tramp actually had to do with it all. Did he just pass by in search of his shoes? A rather bizarre person who served as filling. And despite their brief appearance the three Paymon family members were convincing enough to conclude that this family was extremely insane. Bloodcurdling testimonies which leave nothing to the imagination.

Unfortunately, the end ruined it all again. Uninspired and in terms of originality certainly not of the same level as the rest of the movie. The rest was certainly of a high level. Both the structure of the story, the sound effects and the editing were excellent in this psychological terror film

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Was really intrigued by the premise of 'Last Shift'. The poster/cover and advertising also looked quite creepy. Was encouraged a little by the average rating and divisive reviews, considering my recent viewings of low-budget films which tended to be poorly received on both counts. So it wasn't as if 'Last Shift' didn't have anything going for it. It actually did have a sizeable degree of potential.

'Last Shift' didn't really live up to much of its potential, turning out to be a film that was nowhere near as good as its premise. It is not unwatchable, it has its good things, and there are certainly far worse films, not just overall but of its genre. It is sadly a case of losing steam far too early after a promising start, with a good first third, and playing it too safe, not enough new ideas or risks and it gets silly and at points dull.

There are good things. Was pleasantly surprised by how good the production values were, the film is very well shot, eerily lit and makes the most of the simple but atmospheric locations. The editing is cohesive at least as well. The sound is not overbearing or obvious, not making the scares too foreseeable.

Juliana Harkovy is a credible lead and as said the first third is good. It is creepy and suspenseful, with not too much of an over-reliance on jump-scares and did find myself biting my nails and jumping a little at times.

Unfortunately, the rest of the acting is pretty non-descript and the character writing is yet another case of having bland characters and also being frustrating in how they behave, a bugbear of mine is hasty and less than logical decision making and there is a lot of that in 'Last Shift'. The script never feels natural or flows and it is very difficult to take it seriously. The direction is uneven, assured in the first third but somewhat leaden towards the end.

Momentum is lost and some of the film gets tedious. Furthermore, the tension, creepiness and suspense goes and is replaced by a lot of face-palming, predictability, tedium and silliness. The final act is a mess of incoherence and intelligence-insulting dumbness and then culminates with an ending that doesn't feel like one at all and reeks of the writers not knowing how to end the film and taking the easy way out.

Overall, lacklustre but not a waste of time. 4/10 Bethany Cox