Trailer here.
Open 24 Hours is a 2018 thriller/horror directed by Padraig Reynolds and starring Vanessa Grasse.
A girl called Mary(Grasse) is applying for a job at a Gas Station. She was in prison for setting her boyfriend on fire. He was a serial killer and a lunatic. She gets the job and she has to work the night shift. She is having hallucinations. She thinks that she sees a figure watching her and it is James, her ex boyfriend. She tells her friend, Debbie, about it. Mary had to watch some of the murders and she is traumatised by it. She starts her shift and meets another employee called Bobby. He shows her what to do and everything. Someone attacks Debbie. Bobby goes off and Mary looks around the place. She thinks that she sees someone and she has a vision of James on fire. Bobby comes back and they chat. They get around to talking about James. She tells Bobby what happened. She found body parts in the basement and James threatened to kill her if she told anyone. She set the house on fire while he slept.
Bobby leaves but his truck breaks down on the way home. Mary gets a call. There is music on the line. It is the same music that James played down the phone to her when he was going to murder someone. Mary discovers Debbie's licence in the bathroom and the toilet overflows with blood. James appears and he tells her that people are going to die. A woman comes into the gas station and Mary thinks that she is the same woman who called her earlier in the evening. Debbie's car is outside and 'you like to watch' is written on it. Mary tries to call Bobby but he has left his phone at work. She suddenly sees Bobby and Debbie. They are tied up. The woman comes up to her with a picture of her daughter. She blames Mary for the murder of her daughter by James. She has a knife and she attacks Mary. Mary locks herself into the stockroom.
The woman breaks in and wants to kill Mary, who hits her with a bottle. Her parole officer, Tom, shows up and he shoots the woman. He tells Mary that James has escaped from prison. James appears and he hits Tom over the head. Then he goes to set her on fire. She wakes up and realises that it was just an hallucination. She is tied up with Debbie and Bobby and Tom. James kills him in gruesome fashion with a sledgehammer. He smothers Debbie. He is going to burn Bobby alive when someone turns up at the gas station. Mary gets free. Bobby tells her that there is a gun in one of the lockers. He tells her how to load it. The customer calls the cops. A truck driver wanders in and James kills him.
Bobby gets the gun from Mary and they try to escape. The cops come. James kills Bobby. Mary tells the police that James is after her. James shoots the cop and Mary runs. She runs into a shack outside and finds a shovel. She hits James with it and runs back into the gas station. He is after her. She finds a deer's head with antlers and she impales him on it. He dies. She collapses and when she wakes up, he's gone. How could he have survived that???Cut to some time later and Mary is working in a hair salon. She thinks that she sees someone watching her. Is it the psycho ex boyfriend???
I enjoyed this film. I liked the premise and it was fun. It isn't the best film ever, but I found it entertaining. There isn't much originality here, but that doesn't matter. There is lots of blood in it and some tense scenes. I think that it is better than a lot of newer films that I have watched. I'm more into older films, but this one surprised me. It is an above average horror/ thriller and I definitely recommend it. I will give it a 5/10.
