Directed by Rich Ragsdale
Written by Robert Sheppe and Mark Young
Starring Scout Taylor-Compton, Nolan Gerard Funk, Jeff Fahey, Deborah Kara Unger
Rated R
Runtime: 90 minutes
In select theaters and available digitally on Feb 4

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

When a horror film is good, it feels like it’s effortless. There’s an idea that someone put a lot of thought into. What if, for example, you could get a curse by sleeping with someone? From there, the script is developed. The creators want to be careful not to bore audiences with tropes and bad dialogue. The script and the performances unearth characters we care about. Or maybe we don’t care, maybe they’re bad people, but we’re intrigued and we want to see where they go. Maybe there’s a unique setting that we haven’t seen before (a Nazi biker bar, for example). From there other important elements, like good lighting and effective music, emphasize the eeriness of the film’s elements.

And then there’s films like The Long Night which coasts on a lazy script with exposition heavy-dialogue that somehow took two people to write. Grace (Scout Taylor-Compton, the Laurie Strode of Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween II) and boyfriend Jack (Nolan Gerard Funk, The Flight Attendant) go on a trip to meet the detective who is looking into the mysterious disappearance of Grace’s family. So, when did they go missing? Who raised her? Why now? It’s unclear. Still, Jack, who has the attitude you would expect of someone so blandly handsome, accompanies her. But when they get there, the house is empty. The detective tells them, in the voicemail, that they can let themselves in, showing more of a level of comfort with strangers than anyone I’ve ever known.

The problem with The Long Night is that it is never set up to be anything other than a two-star horror film. How it gets these two characters to this isolated plantation home feels clumsy. Creepy things start to happen at the plantation. Creepy to the characters, maybe, not to us. A disemboweled squirrel centered inside a blood-spattered pentagram? Sure, I’d probably shriek if I saw that on my doorstep when I was expecting an Amazon package, but in the film it’s like, “Oh. That.” Figures in black cloaks wearing reindeer skulls stand outside. Again, if I turned the corner at the store and saw someone wearing a reindeer skull, I’d be like “Whoa shit!” But here it’s almost like the script requires it. A skull, some sort of mask, etc. At least with a skull you don’t have to bother with any makeup.

Scout Taylor-Compton gives it her all here. She’s a capable actor who makes a good damsel in distress but can look eerie and mysterious if the scene requires it. She’s a physical actor, not afraid to look like how someone would actually look trying to fight a mysterious cult of masked killers. Blood smeared with sweat mixed in with tears and a runny nose. Nolan Gerard Funk struggles to make his lines convincing, but it’s a task. When he sees the squirrel, he remarks “I’ve never seen anything like this before. They didn’t teach this shit at Princeton.” You see, that’s how we know he went to Princeton. When I see something I’m not prepared for, I’m always like, “They didn’t teach this shit in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus.” He also tells a group of the cult members, “my dad’s a litigator, he’ll fuck you up in court!” You have to actually get someone to court to fuck them up. It’s a whole process. It’s almost like these lines are supposed to be funny, but they’re not. The film is quite serious.

Scout Taylor-Compton is the only thing from turning The Long Night into a complete train wreck.  That, and a couple eerie visuals, like a woman floating in a sepia-toned forest, or Grace being pulled by the cult and suspended in mid-air. The music is appropriate – the film has all the bwonnngggs and shrieking strings the soundtrack requires. And there’s some effective gore if you’re willing to wait for the film’s last 15 minutes. But in spite of the effort on the part of Taylor-Compton, as well as an aptly cast Deborah Kara Unger (Crash, Thirteen) as a member of the cult, The Long Night flat and derivative with little to no surprises.