It’s the final purge for now, with the last three films I had in my Shudder watchlist at the moment, so let’s get right into them.
NIGHT’S END (2022)
Night’s End is one of those films with a story told predominantly through video chat. It also has a fantastically cheesy horror denouement that takes me back to horror of the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, you have to sit through 70 minutes of video chats to get to those awesome final ten minutes.
A reclusive dude who lives in a building that only has one other apartment, which is vacant, is trying to become an internet sensation in any way he can. I immediately became disconnected from this character because his hobby is collecting dead birds that he keeps in plastic bags in his freezer and displays all over his apartment. WTF?
And then…he starts freaking out when the dead birds start falling off the wall and appearing around his apartment. Insert palm to forehead emoji here…
His viewers begin to suggest maybe his apartment is haunted. There are knocks on the door, he hears the door opening and closing, and he sees weird stuff in the camera on his videos.
He turns to friends and strangers online as he researches the paranormal. He learns of an axe murderer that lived in his apartment. And eventually, a handful of the people he chats with throughout the film sign on all at once to talk him through a ritual to rid himself of his ghost, which is when all hell breaks loose.
If you’re in the mood for some cheap last minute thrills, there is some footage of the leading man shirtless in the middle of the movie to help kill the time it takes to get there.
ON THE 3RD DAY (2021)
It was only after skimming through this movie again as I grabbed screenshots for this post that I realized that while it’s such a disjointed mess the first time around, it can be appreciated a little more once you know what it was going for.
A woman has a car accident while driving with her young son at night, eventually wakes up in a hospital, and can’t remember what happened or where her son is. The film then takes us on an out of order journey revealing what happened.
Unfortunately, it tosses in scenes of the guy who was driving the car that hit her holding another woman hostage in a box.
To confuse matters more, it also throws in scenes of him having nightmares. Plus, there are what feel like fever dreams the main woman is having as she is hypnotized and recalls incidents leading up to her getting in the car with her son. Argh!
In the final chapter, the truth is revealed, and it involves a creepy cool version of a classic monster.
There’s also a twist that only has an impact if you go back and watch the movie again, because it’s simply lost in all the chaos of the way the narrative is handled here, which is a damn shame.
MOLOCH (2022)
Moloch is a bit too slow and low energy for my tastes, however, it has some tense moments and an unnerving tone and will most likely get under your skin if you’re into movies about local legends and curses.
A woman lives with her young daughter, her ill mother, and her father, who believes that something is inevitably coming to get them due to a family curse.
Following the death of a homeless man near their home, the family experiences a terrifying home invasion that triggers a series of mysterious situations.
The mystery of the curse plaguing them unfolds very slowly, so an intense escalation of cultish events in the final act when the truth comes out feels a bit jarring. It’s also the most thrilling part of the film other than that earlier home invasion.
