Review of The Last Showing (2014) by Ashley D — 17 Jan 2015

I somehow get the feeling the director of this film wanted to write an essay, not make a film. How do I know this? Well apart from his complete self aware script, this film acts more like a "lesson" rather than any form of entertainment of thrill.

The annoying thing is, how do you fuck up a premise like this? Two love birds go to a late night screening of a horror movie, apart from being the only clients in the building, they are joined by a disgruntled manager and a very peculiar projectionist, who's job is now to serve popcorn to the public.

However tonight, he's cracked and decides to force the couple into a game, in which lives are at stake and he gets to film and edit the end product. Robert Englund's in this movie, as the bad guy, how can this possibly go wrong? Well the script is pish poor, literally, shocking.

The characters arent even characters, they are just the thoughts of the writer/directors head spewing onto paper as he tries to sound like some horror guru. He spews out such nonsense on paper, half the time he has no idea what hes talking about and it shows.

One scene see's the projectionist complaining about the wrong aspect ratio, only for the manager to say "no one cares about that, all they care is about realism" what does that even mean? Aspect ratio has nothing to do with realism.

Did he think just because he knew a couple of terms that flinging them in would make the script sound intelligent? He name drops like fuck also, Wes Craven this, Brandon Lee that! Well whoopie doo mate, not only did you name drop a director your lead worked relentlessly for but your the scratching at the bottom of the barrell to try and relate snuff to accidental deaths on set, oh yeah and although Brandon Lee died on set, Bruce didnt, making his name inclusion fuckin pointless.

What else is wrong with this film woeful acting from everyone. Everyone in the movie is shocking, although you cant blame them, look what they have to work with. The film isnt scary, there is about 10 seconds worth of tension, there is not even an attempt at freaking us out, no jump scares (yes even in this, at least some effort would be appreciated), there is no care! I tell you who does care, the DOP, who actually does something with the material.

Something! Which is more than can be said for the writer/producer/director who cant write, cant direct and clearly cant produce as he allowed himself to woefully submit this nonsense as entertainment.

If anyone was to even read this script, they would have taken a massive red marker and just scrubbed most of the dialogue out. If he had another producer, maybe they could take some pressure of him as he clearly wasnt bothered about directing the actors because, hey its that dude from game of thrones and freddy from nightmare on elm street, they dont need direction.

.. I'm trying to think of something, apart from the concept and the occasional nice bit of cinematography, to positivley mention about this film. The set looks nice, although by the looks of it, it was all shot on location so, cant fuck that one up too hard can you? The ending as well, which okay, I see how they got their, but really? people die in a cinema, which is locked in by electronic shutters, and you dont even think for a moment that it may be slightly odd? Theres a guy shouting at the cameras, nah he must just be mental.

.. Look theres 2 guys fighting before one gets shot, nup this guys clearly a nut. Oh look heres a laptop with an open edit of a snuff movie, thats had all the data disconnected, with a fuckin post it beside it directing exactly whats going on, nah we'll just give the dude his laptop back, no more questions asked.

This is a woeful attempt at a movie, never mind a horror. The shame here is that some decent acting talent is completely wasted in this, a concept that could have been easily brilliant is just pished upon from a great height and the location used, was wasted on shit like this.

God awful, dont go anywhere near this.