Night’s End (2022)
Directed By: Jennifer Reeder
Starring: Geno Walker, Felonious Munk, Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington
Plot Summary: Ken (Geno Walker) is recovering after a breakdown that leaves him separated from his wife and children, jobless and living in an apartment. Making matters worse, Ken seems unwilling to even leave his apartment, choosing to shut in from friends and family. He fills his time with making self-help videos which don’t seem to be very popular. During one such video Ken’s friend Terry (Felonious Munk) notices one of Ken’s stuffed birds falls off a shelf behind him. This encourages the content creator to investigate the history of his apartment. Things of course spiral out of control as Ken discovers a sinister force at play.
I’ve had a recent string of, shall we say, less than stellar screeners. Both The Seed and The Bunker Game had interesting aspects but sadly missed the mark. Will Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin, V/H/S 94) break my losing streak?
It’s impressive that director Jennifer Reeder is able to firmly establish characters, tone, and visual language all within the first twenty-so minutes. This may seem unremarkable, but I’ve seen a lot of films struggle to find its footing so quickly, as well as efficiently. Thankfully, things don’t feel overwritten, and we the audience are given just enough context to engage with the story. It also helps that the actor playing Ken, Geno Walker, is charming and painfully relatable, making it incredibly easy to get on his side. Isolation, fear and the feeling of having little to no control in a post-COVID world is, I think, perfectly captured in Reeder’s melancholic supernatural outing.
Speaking of, I’d be curious to find out if this was filmed earlier, during the height of the pandemic, as the movie cleverly uses its plot to be as contactless as possible. This is done with the aid of Zoom chats similar to 2020’s Host. The cast is great, and as I mentioned above, Geno Walker makes a solid lead. Notably, Michael Shannon makes an appearance which was a nice surprise. Though, Shannon isn’t given any heavy lifting and instead plays an overly-excitable new boyfriend to Ken’s ex-wife.
Sadly, that is where my positives end. The movie veers into a messy and confusing ghost film once the supernatural element is introduced. What it boils down to is that it lacks a truly compelling and memorable hook to help it stand out. It only makes matters worst that the paper-thin narrative is bland and feels woefully underwritten to the point that things don’t make sense. Seriously, it feels like big chunks of exposition are missing. Not to mention the finale, which is so out of left field but also unintentionally hilarious.
Night’s End also struggles with its identity and what exactly it wants to be. On the one hand, it feels like Reeder is aiming for a less-is-more ghost story in the vein of the works of author Shirley Jackson. By this I mean that the supernatural elements are often ambiguous and meant as a metaphor for broader themes. However, the film also wants to be very up front that otherworldly forces are at play. It left me wishing that this movie could have either been a deeper mediation on its themes of mental health, isolation and navigating in a scary world or a good old fashioned ghost story. As it stands now, both its subtle and bleak trappings coupled with its more outrageous horror elements clash in a way that feels jarring and uninteresting. We’ve seen in the past that films can indeed manage this tonal balance. However, the lack of a coherent story holds it back. The direction and acting is solid, and I think this would have made a better short film.
Night’s End is currently available to stream on Shudder.
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Big film nerd and TCM Obsessed. Author of The Ultimate Guide to Strange Cinema from Schiffer Publishing. Resume includes: AMC’s The Bite, Scream Magazine etc. Love all kinds of movies and television and have interviewed a wide range of actors, writers, producers and directors. I currently am a regular co-host on the podcast The Humanoids from the Deep Dive and have a second book in the works from Bear Manor.
