Late Night at the Movies review

By Simon Thompson

Writer/director Taylor Rhoades’s Late Night At The Movies is an endearing micro-budget horror comedy, armed with a funny script and a genuine sense of passion and effort that leaps right off the screen. Shot on location in the cinema where Rhoades is a manager, and with a cast/crew consisting of his friends and family, Late Night At The Movies displays a real do-it-yourself charm that’s hard not to like. 

The plot of Late Night At The Movies follows Kayleigh (Melody West), a cinema employee called into work on her day off after a co-worker has gone missing. After a row with her girlfriend, Kayleigh decides to spend the night at the cinema, only to discover that someone (Gideon Morley) is creeping around the place, stalking her and her co-workers. 

Tonally, Late Night At The Movies is a mix between 90s hangout classics (e.g. Clerks, Reality Bites, American Movie, Dazed And Confused, Empire Records, and Bottle Rocket) with slasher movies (with one shot in particular paying tribute to Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill) and splatter horror of the George A Romero, Sam Raimi, and Peter Jackson variety. There is also a dash of Shaun Of The Dead in how Kayleigh and the supporting characters are stuck in a limited, stagnant, and dead end existence and are largely resigned to it. 

Rhoades’s dialogue is fast and snappy, with two specific scenes, one where Kayleigh is having an argument with her girlfriend and discovers that she was only pretending to like the movies that Kayleigh likes; and the other an argument about favourite movies between two of Kayleigh’s co-workers involving the god awful Dana Carvey starring vehicle Master Of Disguise, being genuinely reminiscent of Kevin Smith in his 90s prime. 

Shot on a micro-budget, the cinematography is stark and workmanlike, which works in the movie’s favour during the final fifteen minutes, where the tone has considerably shifted. That isn’t to say that there aren’t moments of flair, with the first kill in particular being a fantastic nod to Dario Argento and other giallo movies, complete with a 70s style synth track to boot. Overall, Late Night At The Movies is a funny and suspenseful horror-comedy, and Taylor Rhoades is a filmmaker with considerable promise. Like Edgar Wright’s A Fistful Of Fingers or Wes Anderson’s original short version of Bottle Rocket, where two talented young directors showed their potential and style on a micro budget before going on to bigger things, I hope that Late Night At The Movies affords Taylor Rhoades the same career opportunities.