The Long Night is about a mostly unlikable married couple who show up at a southern country home. And wouldn’t you know it – next thing you know they are “surrounded” by a handful of skull-mask wearin’ cultists up to their old tricks again.

This movie tries real hard to elevate that horror. It pulls out all the tricks like title cards, rotating cameras, long slow walks into camera, moments that may or may not be happening, a dirge-like very serious musical score, and so on and on and on. Thing is, while the lighting and camera work might be elevated, the mood, story, and tin-eared script certainly are not.

No, I’m afraid this very serious try-hard film just comes across as a little too pretentious. It had ambitions certainly and I give them credit for trying. But they just didn’t have a very interesting story, characters, set up, atmosphere, or scares.

I wish I could give it just a slightly higher score, but I was so dead bored by the end of the flick. One of those, “could you please just end?” type movies where you hope the remaining runtime includes very length credits.

An interesting but failed attempt at a super generic story, ultimately. Maybe the director and cinematographer have another film in them. I’d be curious to see if they could pull it together for a second film.

Score: 66