Review: 12 Hour Shift

Official Synopsis: Bodies start to pile up when a drug-user nurse, Mandy (Angela Bettis) and her cousin, Cathy (Julianne Dowler) try to find a replacement kidney for an organ trafficker. (Mick Foley)

This is another film that was featured on the documentary 1000 Women in Horror that I previously had not heard of.  Being released during COVID probably didn't help that, according to IMDb this film grossed a little over $6,000 in its opening weekend. Thankfully, it has now found a home on Netflix for easy viewing.

12 Hour Shift is a horror comedy first, and your mileage may vary with just how much absurdity you can handle. Mandy is a an easy character to follow. She has a drug problem, but she and her co-worker, Karen (Nikea-Gamby Turner) mostly have their shit together when it comes to handling their jobs and moonlighting as organ smugglers. It's when Cathy comes into the picture that it can get trying. Cathy is easily one of the dumbest characters ever written. It's very intentional and Dowler is good at playing her, but it can be very frustrating to watch. While there are some great comedic moments, there are others times where I thought it was just too much.

I know the character of Cathy is necessary because mistakes have to happen, but I kind of wished we only followed Mandy and Karen. I think it still could've been very funny without having to rely on so many other characters being idiots. The concept of this film is great, and her setting it in Arkansas in the 90's was also a good choice.

I think Writer/Director Brea Grant has a lot of promise. You can tell this film had a very limited budget. It's fairly obvious they're reusing the same rooms over and over for different locations so she clearly had a lot of constraints to work with. But I see her vision, even if it didn't land with me as much as I hoped it would.

Still, I think it's definitely worth a streaming watch this October. Especially if horror comedy is a genre that works for you.

Grade: C