Directed by Jennifer Reeder
Written by Brett Neveu
Starring Geno Walker, Felonious Munk, Kate Arrington, Michael Shannon
Runtime: 1 hour 21 minutes
Unrated
Streaming exclusively on Shudder March 31

by Audrey Callerstrom, Associate Editor and Staff Writer

Night’s End is a pandemic-shot, pandemic-central horror film that never mentions the pandemic. It’s probably a wise choice, given that we’re all two years into this new state of living and perhaps we don’t want a reminder of it in the films we’re watching. It stars Geno Walker (Chicago Fire) as Ken Barber, a divorced dad who moved hours away from his family to start a new life in a new apartment. The film is deliberately vague about Ken’s history, which I don’t think works to the film’s advantage. In some ways it’s similar to Steve Soderberg’s Kimi, although Night’s End doesn’t get the anxious, reclusive Ken past his front door until the very final shot, and it’s not nearly as engaging as Kimi.

Ken has a regular routine. Out of work, he attempts to make a living as a YouTuber, recording videos on tips for everything from being a divorced dad to caring for your lawn. His windows are plastered with newspaper. Plastic sheeting remains over parts of his apartment. He has a regimen of food and drink. He mixes Pepto with his coffee each morning (this film and Jim Cumming’s The Beta Test are normalizing nervous stomachs). He boils tomato soup to eat. He lays on an inversion table. He manicures – is that the word? – a collection of taxidermized birds. One evening during a video call with his friend Terry (Felonious Munk), Terry informs Ken that in one of Ken’s latest videos, one of his birds falls off a shelf in the background. Without any other explanation – no open windows – Terry and Ken suspect that Ken’s new apartment is haunted. Ken begins to look into it while seeing if perhaps the supposed haunting in his apartment might lead to some new subscribers. Ken investigates and finds out that a grisly murder happened in his apartment building some time ago.

Director Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin, V/H/S 94) is skilled at not making us feel cramped inside Ken’s apartment, and showing us Ken’s mental state through his daily routines. People with anxiety will be familiar with Ken’s regular counting and breathing routine. He starts at 10, slowly counts down to 1. Each time, he speaks aloud that he’s making progress. But the film’s script deprives us of any real understanding of Ken’s anxiety or what lead to his sudden reclusion. While it doesn’t feel cramped shooting in one location, the constant back and forth of shots of Ken at his laptop with shots of friends on a video call grows repetitive. This is especially apparent in the film’s final scene, where the camera pivots numerous time between all the characters watching a livestream of the exorcism. We see a lot of reaction shots from characters we just met having exaggerated reactions to what’s happening in Ken’s home, instead of having those reactions ourselves. 

There are a couple familiar actors in supporting roles here. Michael Shannon plays the new husband of Ken’s ex, Kelsey (Kate Arrington). Sadly he doesn’t get to do anything more than be a goofball dressed in a Hawaiian shirt who gets excited on video calls with Ken when Ken talks about the ghost in his apartment. Adding more to the pandemic nature of the film is the fact that it seems like the story was written around the ability to use Shannon, who is married in real life to Arrington. Simple enough to film them together without the chance of exposure. The film could have used more scenes in different spaces, even if the scenes themselves were redundant. A flashback of the grisly murder, perhaps? It’s frustrating, too, that Ken is so underdeveloped. We just know that Ken has anxiety and is a recluse, and the nature of why or how or when is omitted entirely, not even so much as hinted at. It’s a technically well made film, and Walker carries it remarkably well as the lead, but it leaves the audience feeling confined and bored.