OPEN 24 HOURS (2018)

Studio:      4Digital Media
Director:    Padraig Reynolds
Writer:      Padraig Reynolds
Producer:  Shibani Kapur, R.P. Khemanand
Stars:     Vanessa Grasse, Brendan Fletcher, Emily Tennant, Cole Vigue, Daniel O’Meara, Selina Giles

Review Score:

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Summary:

Visions of the serial killer boyfriend she once tried to kill haunt a troubled woman during the night shift of her new job.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Although diagnosed as suffering from paranoid delusions, Mary White is released from a mental hospital after serving a sentence for immolating her serial killer boyfriend James Lincoln Fields, a.k.a. ‘The Rain Ripper.’ As part of her rehabilitation, Deer Gas Market proprietor Ed hires Mary as the new night shift cashier at his remote Missouri gas station.

While alone in her apartment, Mary experiences a hallucination of James murdering one of his 35 victims in the bathroom. Dogged police officer Tom Doogan visits Mary to reiterate the conditions of her parole.

Mary experiences another vision of James stalking her at a park and also hallucinates seeing a bloody victim at a diner. Mary’s longtime friend Debbie reminds her that James is still in prison and recommends Mary not say anything about her delusions or risk repercussions with her parole officer.

Karen Rogers, the mother of Rain Ripper victim Christine Rogers, calls Mary at home to threaten her. While Debbie drives her to the gas station, Mary mentions that she always knew when James was going to kill because he would call her to play “Raindrops” by Delecta Clark, which is why she avoids phones.

Debbie drops off Mary at the gas station as it begins raining. Ed’s employee Bobby shows Mary the job basics before leaving for the night. Debbie also leaves, but James attacks her outside.

As the night goes on, Mary thinks someone is with her inside the store. Karen Rogers also calls repeatedly with cryptic threats.

A trucker stops at the station. Mary rushes after him when he leaves his credit card behind and confronts a vision of James on fire. Mary snaps out of her hallucination when Bobby returns unexpectedly to check on her.

Bobby asks about Mary’s past. Mary admits that James Lincoln Fields, who was called ‘The Rain Ripper’ because he believed killing in the rain would cleanse his victims’ souls, was her boyfriend. Mary became known in the media as ‘The Watcher’ because after she discovered James was a murderer when their basement flooded with body parts, James forced Mary to watch him kill. Mary finally overcame her fear of James after seeing him murder Christine Rogers, so she set their house on fire with both of them still inside.

Bobby leaves. Bobby’s truck breaks down on the road a short time later. James attacks him.

A teenage boy and teenage girl briefly stop inside the gas station to use the bathroom and buy alcohol with a fake i.d.

Mary hears the song “Raindrops” when she answers the phone. Investigating the flooded bathroom, Mary sees James’ reflection in a mirror. She also confronts a vision of a drowned victim begging for help as the toilet overflows with blood.

Mary’s parole officer Tom Doogan stops in to check on Mary. While Tom uses the bathroom, James enters the store to confront Mary. Although Mary insists he is a hallucination, James hits Mary to prove he is real while he threatens her. Mary closes her eyes. When she opens them, she sees Karen Rogers standing where James was. Karen leaves claiming she doesn’t know what Mary is talking about when Mary accuses her of being the threatening woman on the phone.

Tom returns. Mary tells Tom about Karen before he leaves.

Mary sees Debbie’s car parked outside with a threat written in blood on the windshield. Mary finds Debbie and Bobby tied to chairs in the store’s back room.

Karen Rogers returns to the store. After revealing who she is and expressing hatred at Mary for watching her daughter die, Karen attacks and chases Mary. Their fight ends when Tom unexpectedly returns and shoots Karen dead.

Tom explains that he returned to warn Mary that James escaped from prison. James suddenly attacks Tom with a hammer. James then attacks Mary and knocks her unconscious.

When she recovers, Mary finds herself bound to a chair in the back room facing Debbie, Tom, and Bobby, who are also gagged and tied to chairs. James forces Mary to watch as he uses a sledgehammer to crush Tom’s head. James then suffocates Debbie with a plastic bag. James douses Bobby with gasoline in preparation for setting him on fire, but is interrupted when the trucker unexpectedly returns.

Seeing blood all over the store, the trucker calls 911. While James stalks the trucker, Mary escapes her restraints, unties Bobby, and arms herself with a shotgun.

James attacks the trucker with a hammer. Thinking he is James, Mary inadvertently shoots the trucker dead. James kills Bobby from behind.

Officer Collins arrives outside the gas station. Mary rushes to him for help, but James uses the shotgun to kill the officer.

Mary runs and hides in a nearby junkyard. James chases Mary back to the gas station. Mary takes one of Ed’s prized deer head trophies down from a wall and uses the antlers to impale James. James bleeds out. Mary collapses from exhaustion.

When Mary wakes up the following morning, James is nowhere to be found. Mary staggers passed the carnage on her way outside.

Mary takes a new job at Luna Salon. While closing the salon alone, Mary thinks she sees James’ reflection in a mirror.

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Review:

Mary’s life hasn’t improved much since being released from a mental hospital. She served a stint there for setting her boyfriend on fire. When the owner of a Podunk gas station where she hopes to land a cashier gig asks if her former beau deserved it, Mary barely hesitates before emphatically nodding yes.

You see, Mary’s boyfriend was James Lincoln Fields, the serial killer known as ‘The Rain Ripper’ for his trademark of murdering victims during downpours. Frozen by fear after discovering his despicable secret, the media dubbed Mary ‘The Watcher’ when James forced her to witness his awful acts. Then Mary summoned the strength to light a match, bringing a brief pause to her seemingly never-ending nightmare.

Now, Mary suffers from paranoid delusions that have her seeing James in his raincoat as well as bloody victims begging for help. Someone appears to be calling with cryptic threats too. Mary doesn’t dare tell her parole officer what’s happening, lest she risk jeopardizing her new job. Her lonely first night on the gas station’s graveyard shift holds even more horrors in store when new bodies start dropping and frightful visions shock her eyes.

Has James really returned? Are these hallucinations in her head? Or could another hand be at work aiming to drive Mary mad?

“Open 24 Hours” recalls the sort of simply stylized slasher that was commonplace in the 1990s. If it starred Jennifer Love Hewitt or a couple of moonlighting WB flavors of the season, and maybe threw in a Creed or Lifehouse B-side as a soundtrack single, the film would have its own Scream Factory Collector’s Edition by now.

Instead, “Open 24 Hours” arrives two decades past the peak of that kind of horror’s heyday. Nowadays, hitting this tone of terror targeted at twentysomethings generally garners regard along the lines of, “I don’t want to spend time looking for something else so I guess I’ll watch it on Netflix.”

I realize how that statement sounds, though it isn’t intended to be demeaning. It’s a mere matter of fact that even though “Open 24 Hours” looks professionally polished and strikes notes it needs to, the movie blazes no remarkable trails.

“Open 24 Hours” filmed on a soundstage in Serbia. You can tell. All things considered, the gas station set mostly reads as realistic, especially on the outside. Inside, the illusion loses a lot of luster from the slim pickings on scant store shelves conspicuously absent of brand names and a magazine rack whose publications have generic titles like “City News.” Even before taking budget constraints into consideration, production design does a terrific job. It’s just obvious that everything comes from carpentry, props, and a printing machine.

But the movie does much more than go through the motions of minimum point-and-shoot mechanics. Lighting drips with rich colors. Rain machines drench exteriors in slick showers. “Open 24 Hours” doesn’t lack a sleek look.

Performances also hit well below par on a green where mediocre efforts would have been equally acceptable (that’s a good thing, if you’re not up on golf analogies). Dressed in a plaid flannel and blue jeans, Vanessa Grasse gives Mary the authenticity of a regular girl you went to school with, not another photogenic actress. Cole Vigue purses his lips to the point where The Rain Ripper has an oddly alluring Ryan Gosling verbal rhythm. Daniel O’Meara’s Baldwin Brothers rasp does the same for Mary’s P.O.

Brendan Fletcher brings out the most amusing moments by being overwhelmingly personable in a role that lesser actors would have slept through. Despite all the gore splattered onscreen, it’s Fletcher’s biting of a pickled pig’s tongue that guarantees involuntary reactions, even from viewers with arms folded in harrumphing disinterest.

And there are reasons to get fed up with the fright film familiarity. Mary giving herself a pep talk in a mirror, popping pills to make visions immediately vanish (not how psychiatric meds work), a bloody message written on a window, and an “I thought it was the killer!” accidental murder are only some of the tropes in plentiful play.

Pretty preposterous plotting doesn’t remotely pass a hindsight logic test either. But “Open 24 Hours” always identifies itself as a straightforward slasher, and having that understanding makes it easier to roll with implausibility in the moment.

Writer/director Padraig Reynolds previously helmed 2016’s “The Devil’s Dolls” (review here), a movie I reviewed favorably but couldn’t tell you the first thing about without rereading what I wrote. “Open 24 Hours” at least has distinctiveness where someone will be able to say, “that one where the girl hallucinates her serial killer boyfriend while working overnight at a gas station” and you’ll immediately recognize the reference. That may not be an enthusiastic endorsement, yet the shoe fits. “Open 24 Hours” is an average thriller made better by the high-grade return of quality production value off a low-budget investment.

Review Score: 65

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