Blu-ray Review: 12 Hour Shift

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews, Top Story

Let’s get one thing out of the way: 12 Hour Shift is under 90 minutes in running time. This isn’t an epic of Russian cinema. This is however an engrossing nightmare about a rural hospital in Arkansas where bad things are taking place during the overnight shift. No matter what happens to you, you’ll want to just walk it off and let it heal on its own.

Mandy (Carrie‘s Angela Bettis) arrives at her hospital to pull a double over night shift. She already looks in rough shape and isn’t quite in chipper Florence Nightingale mode. But quickly we see that Mandy isn’t ready going to pull her long shift off by just downing Red Bulls. She crushes up a few pills and snorts down an energy burst. She goes through the overnight bag of an unconscious patient looking for goodies. But Mandy isn’t merely a drug addicted petty criminal. She’s part of a much darker scheme. Her and a fellow nurse (Rosewood’s Nikea Gamby-Turner) are running an organ harvesting scheme to supplement their pay. They’ve been snatching kidneys out of people that die during their shift. A local mobster (WWE legend Mick Foley) is running the scheme. But things go bad this shift when the easily distractible Regina (Departure‘s Chloe Farnworth) screws up delivering an urgently needed kidney to the mobster. She has an hour to find out what happened to the organ or she’ll have to donate to her cause. Mandy doesn’t want to help her even if she is or isn’t her cousin. Plus there’s a prisoner being treated in a room (Scream‘s David Arquette) who might be a problem patient. This isn’t shaping up to be an easy overnighter.

If you want to feel old, 12 Hour Shift is historical piece since it takes place in 1999 when the big fear in a hospital was Y2K screwing up stuff. Have you thought that 1999 is now over two decades ago? Although after all that time, it’s easy to forget since David Arquette is still in Scream shape.

The best part of 12 Hour Shift is that writer-director Brea Grant doesn’t overplay the film. She lulls the audience into a feeling that we’re stuck inside a low grade hospital in Arkansas (it was shot in the state) with Mandy. She has the necessary comic touches from keeping it too bleak since nobody likes to think about their kidney being snagged when they only need an emergency appendectomy. There’s a good tone to the work even when things get hectic as Regina attempts to keep both her kidneys and appease the mobster. Angela Bettis holds things together where they seem mundane or frantic. She looks like she is pulling that double shift in every frame no matter what bodily fluids end up on her. There’s plenty of blood from various incidents to keep the screen drenched in red. After watching 12 Hour Shift, you’ll have another thing to fear when you get checked into the hospital.

The video is 2.35 anamorphic. The 1080p resolution brings out the blandness of the hospital. This isn’t an exciting high tech medical place. It’s unvarnished and works. The audio is 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. You’ll hear the icky sounds of a hospital quite clearly.

Magnolia and Magnet presents 12 Hour Shift. Directed by: Brea Grant. Screenplay by: Brea Grant. Starring: Angela Bettis, David Arquette, Chloe Farnworth, Mick Foley,Kit Williamson Kit Williamson and Nikea Gamby-Turner. Running Time: 88 minutes. Rated: Unrated. Released: January 6, 2021.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.