PopHorror Let's Get Scared
New year, new movies! I’m so excited to start 2021 with one of my favorite fests, the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival. This year, they’re screening 12 Hour Shift a film I’ve been wanting to see since I first read another PopHorror writer’s thoughts on it. The trailer is chock full of gore, drugs and organ theft. What more could you ask for?
Synopsis:
Bodies start to pile up when a drug-user nurse and her cousin try to find a replacement kidney for an organ trafficker.
12 Hour Shift stars one of my favorite horror actresses, Angela Bettis (May 2002, The Woman 2011), and was written and directed by Brea Grant, whom I loved in Halloween 2 (2009). Scream’s David Arquette (read our interview with him here), Chloe Farnworth (Departure 2019), Wrestler Mick Foley, Nikea Gamby-Turner (Rosewood TV series), and Kit Williamson (All The Creatures Were Stirring 2018 – read our review of the film here). Both David Arquette and his wife, Christine McLarty Arquette, are on board as producers along with the film’s composer/cinematographer, Matt Glass (The Circle 2017), assistant director Jordan Wayne Long (Ghosts Of The Ozarks 2016), Michael May (Fun Size Horror Volume 1 2015), and Tara Perry (Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party TV series).
We all want money, right? And sometimes, we’ll do just about anything to get it. For Nurse Mandy (Bettis), she needs cash to support her drug habit. What better way to earn than than by selling human organs? Luckily for her, she works in an ER where people die often. Body parts galore! She’s partnered with her maybe cousin, Regina (Farnworth), who picks the parts up and delivers them to her black market hookup. Unfortunately for Mandy, Regina is what you might call incompetent, irresponsible, flighty, easily distracted… not the qualities you want in your organ mule. It’s not long before Regina loses the kidney she had gotten from the nurse and threatens Mandy with going to the cops if she doesn’t help get another one. This is when the bodies start to hit the floor.
What Works
There is a great concept at work here. Turning an oft repeated stereotype on its head, 12 Hour Shift takes what you think you know about the medical field and turns it on its head. I love that I never really knew what would happen here, and each twist was something I wasn’t expecting.
There are some great characters in 12 Hour Shift. They’re not lovable, but I love them anyway. You’ve got Mandy, a permanent look of disgust and annoyance on her face as shit hits the fan all around her. She struggles with keeping it together while doing her job, dealing with the shock of the situation, and trying to overcome her body’s want of more drugs. Her I Don’t Give A Shit attitude was a bit refreshing for a nurse, since they’re usually portrayed as being angels on earth (not that they aren’t, mind you. It was just cool to see a different perspective.). I love Karen (Gamby-Turner) and I wish I was a nurse just so I could work with her. There’s the eternally annoying guy in the waiting room and, last but not least, the dancing security guard. Oh, and I can’t forget the Spurt soda machine. That thing needs a page on IMDb. If it weren’t for the murderous bloodshed and psychotic criminals running around, I would definitely take a job at this place.
I like the fact that 12 Hour Shift took place in 1999. Not only does it take away the cell phone aspect of a horror film (something that can really throw a wrench in things story-wise), it also deals with Y2K preparation, something only the people who lived through it can know the horror of. We really had no idea if all computers would shit the bed at the stroke of midnight, so people were in a constant, heightened panic (sorta like now).
What Doesn’t Work
The film is billed as a comedy drama, but it really doesn’t pick up with much of anything until the halfway mark. It’s unfortunate because I could see so many missed opportunities. Many characters could have been give more than a single note, giving them a bit of depth and personality, rather than just one trick ponies. I didn’t really understand the Bible/faith references. They would have made more sense if the film had ended in a more punitive way, I think. I liked seeing them in there, but they were a bit confusing as far as their purpose.
12 Hour Shift also left some unanswered questions. Is Mandy religious? Is that why there were so many Biblical undertones? What’s the story between Mandy and her half-brother? I would have loved to see these things explored more.
Final Thoughts
Brea Grant’s 12 Hour Shift is an original, creative jaunt down the dark, bloody road of organ harvesting, drug addiction, and self-serving decisions. I recommend watching once for the atmosphere, and then again for the nuances. I’m terribly excited to see what this filmmaker brings us next.
