Thursday, December 24, 2015

Postmortem Q&A: LAST SHIFT (2014)



[A word of explanation about our Postmortem Q&As: after each of us write our reviews, we send along a few questions for the other.  THE OTHER.  Then the whole shebang gets thrown up into its own post.  It's like we're right inside your room, talking to each other like you're not even there.  The nerve!]

This week we're answering questions about Last Shift.  Missed our reviews?  Read them first!
Last Shift (2014) [Joe's Take]
Last Shift (2014) [Paul's Take]
Paul's Questions/Joe's Answers
PH:  The prostitute says she has to go “make donuts” at one point.  Is this another cop stereotype provocation or did I miss something? 
JD:  According to Urban Dictionary, ‘time to make the doughnuts’ means it’s time to get to work, and it comes from an old Duncan Donuts commercial in which the donut maker would say, well, you know. Also, for what it’s worth, the top related words include:

‘dry-humping’, ‘abstinence’, ‘america runs on dunkin’, ‘anal rape’, ‘bacon’, ‘best time ever’

I actually clicked on ‘anal rape’ just to see if there were some hip, new way the kids were using these days, like “That bike is so anal rape!” but no, it still means the same thing as it ever did. Also, ‘best time ever’ HAS no definition. The mysteries just don’t STOP with this movie!

PH:  Why doesn’t Jessica fix her hair? 

JD:  I’m pretty sure at one point she gets locked in a prison cell with a hobo, whom she tases into unconsciousness, then loses her flashlight. Then it gets FOUND by a specter that whispers creepy shit, and shines light on the hobo just so you can see he’s not the one with the flash light, which is IMPOSSIBLE, and terrifying. And she eventually gets out of there, and the first thing she does…is go back to her desk and work on her Police Training Manual some more. Maybe she’s looking for the section on ghost busting, but I don’t know why she does anything she does after the first 10 minutes.

No! Wait, because in the first 10 minutes, she finds a creepy ass room, and in the very next scene she’s sitting there eating a sandwich in it! And then, she finds a hair in her mouth, except it’s an extremely long black hair, which she pulls like three feet out of her mouth. That’s what you get for eating a sandwich in a creepy room, and on top of that, it’s obviously her hair, so she only has herself to blame. And finally, maybe that’s why she doesn’t fix her hair, because she’s already had enough of it for lunch! BEST TIME EVER

PH:  Discuss the transcendent evil of office furniture.

JD:  I spent most of the movie thinking things like “I would be OUT of there. I would call for back up, from my car, because I would be out.” I started thinking that during the bathroom scene, and basically never stopped. Except for the chair scene. I could take a chair. And watching her get beat up by one was like watching one of those dramatized, metaphorical struggles with drug addiction from D.A.R.E commercials when we were kids. Were those a thing? Because that felt like what I was watching. She didn’t really lose to a chair. She was really losing to crystal meth.

PH:  Was that “Su-eee” decent enough by pig farming standards? 

JD:  To tell you the truth, I didn’t make the pig farmer, cop, sow connection as quickly or as completely as you did. You pigged up on it! Snort.

PH:  Explain the immaculateness of the eyebrows of the female ghostly redneck non-Satan-worshiping pig farmers.

JD:  Well, they clearly never fought a possessed office chair, or at least one of those eyebrow hairs would NOT have been on flique.

Joe's Questions/Paul's Answers
JD:  So, Paul, at what point would you have never, ever gone back in that police station?

PH:  Honestly, I don't think I would have returned just to answer the phone.  I mean, she was OUT.  And then she comes running back in because she doesn't want it to go to voicemail?  Please.  That phone brought her absolutely no good news the whole time.  I mean, even when the hazmat guys called it was only to tell her that they were going to be late. 

JD:  What happened to the bathroom? Was that the devil worshipers? Or was the police station next to an Arby's?

PH:  My first thought was that it was the urinating homeless guy who was apparently squatting in their utility closet.  But then he peed on the floor, which, really, can you blame him after seeing the bathroom?  So now I’m thinking that it was the other cops playing a good old fashioned poo joke on the new recruit.

JD: As a Silent Hill fan, how Silent Hill was this movie?

PH:  Fairly Silent Hill?  I know you take issue with the “you can’t distinguish between reality and fantasy” psychological horror thing, but I dig it when done well.  I also liked how the special effects seemed to rely on old-fashioned makeup and prosthetics rather than CGI, which reminds me of the Silent Hill movie.  Though that one CGI-aided scene where the corpse is being dragged on the ground by something invisible and then it is pulled up and begins to walk?  Terrifying.

JD:  What did you think of the blond woman whom she meets outside?

PH:  You mean the banged-up prostitute who has all the killer info on the haunted police station’s past?  I thought she was. . .convenient.  I also thought that she might ply her trade somewhere a little less suburban park looking, but what do I know?

JD:  What could have made this good?

PH: I thought it was good!  I mean, not top 10 list or anything, but more good than bad.  I guess what could have made it better would have been more character development for the evil office chairs.  Like, how many farts does an office chair have to eat before turning on you?

And that's it for Last Shift.  Next up:  Bound to Vengeance.  Time to make the donuts.

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