Night of the Reaper

Screened on Shudder.

What a title. When I first heard it, I thought it must have been a 70s or even 80s horror film that completely evaded me all these years. Its rather bland and kind of obvious, but also sharp, memorable and perfect all the same. So it was surprising to find out this was a new production that planned to debut on Shudder. Cool, it goes on the list.

Good thing I've learned to keep expectations low when it comes to Shudder productions, because with the streamers and their original productions you're more likely to be watching "content" than you are actual "cinema" much of the time. As snooty and elitist as that may sound, it's true. It's right there in the name. Kinda funny then that television has become more "cinematic" in the past decade, but I digress.

For me, Night of the Reaper very much felt like content, and it's highly likely my generation is not exactly the target audience. I'm sure there are others saying this or something similar, but a better title for this may have been Night of the Cliches. That's because - and hang on to your chair - this content was full of them. There were sparks here and there, where you CAN see a future for these Christensen ... brothers, I assume. But overall, this didn't even come close to living up to the promise of it's excellent title. Bad acting choices (casting was decent though), odd tonal shifts, editing that needed work, first draft vibes, Again, a few sparks, but no lighter fluid in sight.