Diona Reasonover

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2022) Cheap, unimaginative horror film are so numerous (especially as filler for cable-TV channels and streaming services) that jaded reviewers can get lulled into a sense of expected mediocrity – we come to expect such same clichés, monsters and repetitive characters that it can take a while for a more ambitious film to prove its distinction. So it is that The Night Watchmen can look and feel like a cheap vampire/zombie film in its setup, but it does finally distinguish itself the longer it goes on. The key here is the humour – not a terribly expensive special effect, but nonetheless an effective one in order to set the result apart from so many other “bunch of people fighting monsters in a closed-off environment.”  Here, our plucky heroes are security guards, a new hire and a journalist fighting vampire/zombie/clown creatures that are taking over a newspaper building. The horror gags and kills are serviceable, but the incredulous attitude and lively banter between characters make The Night Watchmen more interesting than many, many po-faced films going through roughly the same story in far less interesting fashion. Not overstaying its welcome at a mere 80 minutes, The Night Watchmen turns out to be a perfectly acceptable B-movie, a bit of a throwback to the glory days of 1980s horror/comedy with a bit of nudity to reinforce that lineage. Director Mitchell Altieri keeps things going at a good pace, and the result is unpretentious fun. I would have liked to see more of Diona Reasonover’s character and the security guards could have been differentiated more strongly (not to mention the rather dull opening minutes), but The Night Watchmen eventually reaches its goals and ends up with a surprisingly watchable film along the way. Although I suspect that approaching it with low expectations probably helped.