Tags:
Film: Nightshooters
Year: 2018
Director: Marc Price
Writer: Marc Price
Starring: Adam McNab, Nickey Evans and Rosanna Hoult
Review:
This is another movie I got the chance to check out the screener for. I read the briefest of synopsis, but that was about it. What I did know intrigued me. I do have to give credit to Justin Cook for hooking me up. The synopsis is a group of filmmakers who find themselves on the run from a violent horde of criminals after witnessing a brutal gangland execution. The problem is the building their in is slated to be demolished the following morning, so time isn’t on their side.
As the synopsis stated, our crew is trying to make a zombie movie called Dawn of the Deadly. From the little bit we get of it, it looks like a cheesy fun movie. The effects look good and they’re done by Ellie (Rosanna Hoult). The director is a jerk by the name of Marshall (Adam McNab). He is carrying on like he’s making a masterpiece, instead of a low-budget movie. His director of photography is Jen (Kaitlyn Riordan), who has a good eye. The assistant director is Kim (Mica Proctor), who is mousey, and there is also an annoying sound guy of Oddbod (Nicky Evans). Also along is the drunk main actor, Harper (Doug Allen), who gets handsy with Ellie and regrets it. There’s also the stunt guy of Donnie (Jean-Paul Ly).
Their night is complicated when Tarker (Richard Sandling) shows up with his henchmen. His nephew was killed by the guy he has tied up. It appears he also burned his nephew alive if these criminals are to be believed. They go about killing his girl and then torturing him. Things take a turn when Tarker and his men realize that the film crew saw what they did. They have to be taken care of before the night ends or risk law enforcement being brought in. This crew though won’t go quietly and fight back to survive.
Since this isn’t a horror movie and there isn’t a lot to the story, that is where I’m going to leave my recap. Where I want to start is that the title of this movie is clever. It is a bit of a pun, which I appreciate. This film crew is doing a night shoot and Tarker shot the girl in the beginning at night. Just a bit of a double meaning that I wanted point out there.
To actually get into breaking down the story, I think this has an interesting premise. I’ve worked on a film set like we have here. There is a minimal crew and many people sometimes doing multiple things to ensure that everything was done. It gave me a bit of nostalgia to that feeling. Its interesting is the people using their talents to survive, so I will credit the writing there. Oddbod noticed at first the interference. He thought it was cellular phones, but the building is wired to blow. Marshall is a jerk for not warning them, especially with some of the effects Ellie is using. Oddbod also uses their microphones as a way to communicate with each other, but also to monitor when the gangsters are coming for them. Ellie uses squibs and other effects to help them survive. My favorite character though is Donnie, who uses his martial arts ability.
To shift slightly though, the premise seems a bit convoluted. The place being rigged to blow is part of the story as to how Marshall could shoot there and why Tarker is killing this guy there. The evidence of the latter will be covered up in the rubble. This also becomes their plan for getting rid of the crew. The explosives also make it why they can’t use guns as the bombs are cheap and can explode easily. It feels a bit convenient, but I can get past it. Being that the demolition is going to happen that morning, so our crew can’t even just survive until then. They have to get out.
That should be enough there so I’ll go over to the acting. I thought the cast was solid to be honest. McNab fits as this jerk director. I like that Evans is this annoying sound guy. Hoult is attractive, but she is also a tough woman. She’s probably my second favorite character. Ly is solid as this stunt guy who becomes a major asset as things get tough. Riordan is also solid. Proctor’s character is interesting as I knew what her arch would be from the beginning. Allen is another jerk in the beginning, but is humbled by some things and comes around for me. Aside from that, I thought Sandling was good as our main villain and his crew is a bit bumbling, but I come to expect that. None of the acting is great, but it works.
So then the last things to go into would be the effects, cinematography and soundtrack. For the former, the practical effects are good. They do some interesting low budget stuff that I liked. They do some things that got quite repetitive to me, almost like they didn’t know what else to use so they kept going back to the same thing they could do. My problem came with the bad CGI. It is used more as we go on with explosions. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it hurt it for me. The cinematography though is solid and looked good. The soundtrack didn’t stand out to me music wise. I did like the use of microphones and stuff with sound with Oddbod. That was an interesting idea to use.
With that said, I thought this was a solid enough action film with a premise that was a bit out of the normal. It doesn’t have the deepest story, but it also didn’t need it. The acting was good enough for something like this. There are some good practical effects here, but we did get see the same things over and over with the CGI not being that good. This also ran too long in my opinion. Other than that, this is shot well. The soundtrack was fine with the use of sound being the best part there. I would say this is over average for me. More fun than I was expecting so I will give it the credit there.
My Rating: 6 out of 10