FrightFest Glasgow review – Last Straw
This opens with an all-night diner in the bleary light of early morning, with bodies on the floor and bloodstains on the jukebox … and a 911 call from cook Jake (Taylor Kowalski) claiming there’s been an incident (no shit) and his friend (and shift manager) Nancy (Jessica Belkin) is dying. Then, in an overfamiliar recent horror/thriller trope, we get a ’24 hours earlier’ caption and the film has to work up to this ‘where we came in’ point – though we note quickly that Jake lied at least once in his 911 call since he and Nancy not only aren’t friends but she’s fired him for not taking her authority seriously.
In fact, director Alan Scott Neal and writer Taylor Sardoni loop back twice … showing the day/night first from the point of view of harassed, unlikeable Nancy (who, apart from everything else, has just discovered she’s pregnant) and then from some other key participants in her overnight ordeal. Nancy’s Dad (Jeremy Sisto) is on a date and has put her in charge, though the staff – even worshipful Bobby (Joji Otani-Hansen) – don’t take her seriously and she’d rather go to a party with her pal Tabitha (Tara Raani) than cater to probably no customers. Some dirtbike dirtbags with Strangers masks cause hassle and the staff let Nancy take the heat by not backing her play to throw them out, which prompts her to fire Jake. Just as being knocked up is her next-to-last straw, losing a job is Jake’s – he’s on medication for some kind of bipolar disorder and will have to rely on crack as an affordable substitute, plus his Downs syndrome brother Petey (Christopher M. Lopes) also works at the diner.
Nancy is left alone to cope, and – in another slightly overfamiliar trope – masked figures lurk in the background as she’s terrorised by unseen menaces. A sheriff (Glen Gould) answers her distress call, having come from a gruesome murder scene – but he gets offed quickly, and harassment turns to a sustained campaign of terror. Jake and Bobby and some other staff members are drawn back into it, and we learn a bit more about the marauding bikers and their rubbish masks, but the film eventually focuses on the similarities between antagonists Nancy and Jake … and we get back to the specifics of that initial call. Last Straw is about two unpleasant, desperate people – which makes its effectiveness as a suspense piece admirable. Belkin – upping her game considerably from disposable fare like Hunt Club and Death Link – and Kowalski are excellent.
Here’s the FrightFest listing.
Discussion
No comments yet.