The Long Night (2022)
*/****
starring Scout Taylor-Compton, Nolan Gerard Funk, Kevin Ragsdale, Deborah Kara Unger
written by Robert Sheppe, Mark Young
directed by Rich Ragsdale
by Walter Chaw Rich Ragsdale’s The Long Night is relentlessly familiar–which is too bad, because it features an excellent score by Sherri Chung, and DP Pierluigi Malavasi does yeoman’s night-work and a mean drone shot. Their aptitude–indeed, elegance–is wholly at odds with the picture’s smirky script (by Robert Sheppe and Mark Young) and solid wall of daft shoutiness. Star Scout Taylor-Compton spends so much of the picture shrieking, even before the bad things start happening in earnest, that the frequency of her hoarse emissions can be either the foundation for the world’s newest and deadliest drinking game, or maybe merely The Long Night‘s most exhausting running joke. It’s hard to say what this film wanted to be about, if it ever wanted to be about more than getting made–my obvious guess being all the supernatural doings as a metaphor for a disintegrating relationship. But if that’s the case, that particular trope has been worn to a nub, and if you’re not going to provide insight or approach it in a novel way, going through the motions really works the ol’ patience muscle.