From Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers, all the way to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Stephen King’s iconically awful Maximum Overdrive, diners have a well-established place in American culture as a location where bad people with bad intentions manifest.
Last Straw, which follows a waitress on her night shift as she’s tormented by a quartet of creepily masked lunatics, continues that noble tradition. The results, however, prove that the diner, for all its cinematic reverence, can be a limited set piece.
While a strong leading performance from Jessica Belkin and the occasional spill of gore keep things relatively interesting, significant swathes of the action involve the characters skulking and sprinting between the same handful of shadow-shrouded rooms, similar to the bafflingly overrated Bodies Bodies Bodies. But what (almost) rescues Last Straw are the rules it intentionally breaks, rather than the rules it unknowingly forgets.
It’s clear from the get-go that director Alan Scott Neal doesn’t hold an allegiance with any genre, horror included. The sometimes-sci-fi-sometimes-country soundtrack that shouldn’t work but somehow does and the inclusion of dance to generate tension — like White Noise and Kinds of Kindness — for example, are both evidence of this. In fact, they make Last Straw infinitely more ethereal and peculiar, and more than just a forgettable slasher. Neal, of course, should be commended for these exotic, experimental touches, but the implausibility of how our antagonists haphazardly spiral into a blood-drenched rampage — even in the context of horror, where fans are more forgiving of a plot hole or two — is impossible to ignore.
Last Straw’s 81-minute running time feels merciful under these circumstances. But if the viewer guts it out to the bitter end, they’ll be treated to some unexpected flourishes that are arguably worth the wait.
CAST
Jessica Belkin
Taylor Kowalski
Jeremy Sisto
DIRECTOR
Alan Scott Neal
SCREENPLAY
Taylor Sardoni
DIGITAL
23 September 2024
