Film Review: 12 Hour Shift

STUDIO: Magnolia | DIRECTOR: Brea Grant | CAST: Angela Bettis, David Arquette, Chloe Farnworth, Nikea Gamby-Turner, Mick Foley, Kit Williamson
RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 2021 | PRICE: DVD $15.60, Blu-ray $19.86
SPECS: NR | 88 min. | Horror comedy thriller | stereo

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie  | Audio  | Video  | Overall 

Having spent the last seven years directing shorts and acting up a storm, Brea Grant (TV’s Eastsiders) writes and directs her second feature film with the twisted thriller-horror-heist comedy 12 Hour Shift.

Angela Bettis puts in the time in 12 Hour Shift.

At the dawn of Y2K, drug-addicted Mandy (Angela Bettis, Carrie) is about to begin her over-night nursing shift at an Arkansas hospital where she and her colleague Karen (Nikea Gamby-Turner, Rosewood) engage in an illegal side hustle procuring and smuggling organs. When Mandy’s scattered cousin and currier Regina (Chloe Farnworth, Departure) misplaces a kidney scheduled for delivery that night, they scramble to replace the lost organ by any means necessary to appease their none too pleased black market bosses. It doesn’t take long for the blood to spill and the bodies to stack up.

12 Hour Shift is darkly comedic, bloodthirsty romp that is certainly not for the squeamish. Working off a sharply clever script, which she also wrote, Grant takes her time building the framework of the storyline as we watch Regina and Mandy make one hilariously bad mistake after another until it peaks in a frenzied, bloody crescendo. Seasoned scream queen Bettis brilliantly leads the terrific female ensemble. Her complex performance as Mandy bounces from drug induced indifference, stupefied frustration, steely indignation and, finally, mental and physical exhaustion. You are really rooting for her to get through her nightmare of a shift without losing her own kidney.

The film falters a bit with its a subplot involving an ill, cop-killing convict (a severely underutilized David Arquette) who could have easily escaped from the hospital during the ruckus but instead randomly runs around the hospital with no apparent motivation or purpose.

That aside, 12 Hour Shift is a fun, fresh take on multiple film genres. Heck, it may have even invented a new one – the scary, screwball comedy – and for that it’s worth the watch.