[CFF 22 Review] ‘Night Shift’ puts up a hell of a fight
Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen’s Night Shift is a no-holds-barred siege film with an unkillable emotional core. The setup is simple: Karen (Natalie Terrazzino) a single mother who must juggle responsibilities between her sick child and janitorial duties of her first overnight shift at a factory. Before too long, a gang of masked aggressors break in and systematically hunt her down.
The film's tension is built entirely from stretches of wordless action. By Karen’s first encounter with the masked men, we are well acquainted with her resourcefulness. Swinson and Thiesson also do an excellent job mapping out the dreary setting that eventually becomes Karen’s battleground. While Night Shift presents a wholly believable scenario, it makes room for pulpy madness within the tedium of a blue-collar job. What makes the film work on an realistic level is the same quality that lends its beatdown gauntlet heft: an unwillingness to accept defeat.
Though Night Shift suffers in places from pacing issues, the score by David Risdahl keeps a steady rhythm as Karen stealthily avoids her attackers. And as sparse as its plot is, Terrazzino holds down the picture with a defiant performance. There are no superheroes, no cowboys, and no John McClanes coming to the rescue—although Karen suffers through a similarly violent comedy of errors with the gang. At times, it feels like watching a cartoon. The cat-and-mouse games often culminate in some of the most outlandish death sequences in a film of this kind. It’s easy to see people in genre films as giant sacks of jelly, ready to explode at the slightest knock. Rarely does killing a person look as arduous and, frankly, annoying as it does in Night Shift. For a furious mother with a bone to pick, however, the mean end of a broken toilet plunger gets the job done.
Karen is the final girl archetype we’ve come to expect in genre films: tough, quick witted, and succinct. Sometimes a character in a story like this gets room to breathe and ponder the instances in her life that put her in such a tight spot. That isn’t the case in this film, where a quiet moment is just a chance to seal a gaping belly wound with super glue and keep moving. Night Shift isn’t stingy with its violence, especially in service of a gag. But it also emphasizes the harrowing reality of the situation.
As if Karen didn’t have enough on her plate, the survival narrative at the center of the film extends to her personal life. Her story progresses rapidly through a series of chases and close calls, but the script also reveals an abuse narrative that comes full circle by the end. In its last half hour, the film becomes increasingly difficult to watch. However, it is a testament to Terrazzino’s dedicated performance that her character’s power isn’t diminished in scenes where she is brutalized. If genre films are largely conduits for revenge fantasies, Karen is part of a comeback sequence well-worth the price of admission (and its streaming equivalent).
Likewise, if the siege film is a staple of extreme US cinema, Swinson and Thiesson have an accomplished film in their hands. As it stands, Night Shift hits hard and would be great to have on rotation during a late night B-movie marathon. Bring your own hammers.
