{"id":29315,"date":"2018-10-25T01:13:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T05:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=29315"},"modified":"2018-10-25T01:13:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T05:13:47","slug":"open-24-hours-2018-screamfest-la-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/25\/open-24-hours-2018-screamfest-la-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open 24 Hours (2018) [Screamfest LA 2018]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A young woman who is recently out of treatment following her setting her serial killer boyfriend on fire finds a job at a 24 hours gas station where her hallucinations, or something else, are making her survival unsure.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Writer\/director Padraig Reynolds puts together a tense, mostly one location film about a woman dealing with PTSD, what is real, what is not, and what may really be happening. The film builds a tension throughout its run time in how her hallucinations and other events are approached, creating a situation where she is unsure as to what is going on and until fairly far in the runtime, the viewer is in the same boat. The connection between the viewer and the lead character is done with great care through the writing, the directing, and the acting.<\/p>\n

In the lead part of the fairly small cast is actress Vanessa Grasse who does really great work with her complex soul character. She gives her layers of emotions, PTSD, and many layers of personality and character. In Grasse\u2019s capable hands, Mary is the perfect character to watch go through everything. She has a way of adding complexity and humanity to the character that creates something realistic and real for the viewer to empathize and connect with. Playing a character that comes and goes in the story but it crucial while also being one that is interesting to watch is Brendan Fletcher as Bobby, the gas station evening attendant who trains Mary and check on her at crucial moments. He gives the kind of performance that attracts a lot of attention to him. His portray is candid and honest, giving him a personality that is friendly and looks genuinely caring. In a few scenes, he is the center of attention even though Grasse is there and giving a great performance. Rounding out the lead cast is Cole Vigue as James who gives a menacing performance creating uncertainty around his character that works perfectly for the film and the tension in the story. The other cast members are not numerous and they all work well with their smaller parts, giving all the characters a believability that is necessary in a smaller scope film like Open 24 Hours.<\/p>\n

Playing almost a character of its own, the main location of the gas station is fantastic in that it looks like it\u2019s right out of Middle of Nowhere America from the outside and little less on the inside. The work of production designer Jelena Sopic, art director Jovana Mihajlovic, and set decorator Bojana Nikolic bring the American gas station to life in Eastern Europe with great talent. However, for those with a keen eye, some of the brands used to fill the shelves do not look right, from the milk bottles looking off to the snack brands definitely not being from the US, but looking more like what once would find in a nice world market. This is a minor gripe however as ignoring the brands that line the shelves is ultimately easy when engrossed in the story. There are a few other similar issues with locations and things not looking quite right, but once the film gets to the gas station, the happenings become all the viewer will care about.<\/p>\n

Open 24 Hours is a good, tense film that is well-written, well-acted, and done with a good attention to detail. More importantly, the film keeps information up its sleep until almost the very end and manages to do so by blurring lines and making the film a lot of fun while it goes through the insanity and the frantic worry of the lead character. The final surprise, the ending, works fantastically well with the story and the acting is great making the film more than worth investing in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young woman who is recently out of treatment following her setting her serial killer boyfriend on fire finds a job at a 24 hours gas station where her hallucinations, or something else, are making her survival unsure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-29315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29317,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29315\/revisions\/29317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}