• Release year: 2023
• Director: Alan Scott Neal.
• Producers: Daniel Brandt, Cole Eckerle, Dane Eckerle, Michael Giannone, Phil Keefe, Levon Panek, Taylor Sardoni, and Sam Slater.
• Screenplay by: Taylor Sardoni.
• Cinematography by: Andrey Nikolaev.
• Music by: Alan Palomo.

Shotgun Commentary: not a masterpiece, but also way better than it looks at a first glance.

Review

Last Straw follows Nancy (Jessica Belkin), the daughter of a diner’s owner. She is tasked to cover the graveyard shift and, because she fired the man supposed to cover it with her, she finds herself alone in the diner throughout the night. Unlike most survival horror movies where the protagonist is usually led unwillingly or unknowingly to a prey position, Last Straw has the protagonist put herself into a dangerous situation completely on her own volition.

Sex, drugs, and rock & roll

This particular behaviour sets Nancy apart from other horror-movie survivors. She creates the situation for the same reasons that make her capable of getting out of it: she’s stubborn, fed up with her situation, and so over men’s sh*t.

Granted, there are two possible readings for the story, the other being that she’s an impulsive woman who’s thinking with her pregnant brain rather than logically. But there are no incels writing this review, and one likes to think there are no incels amongst the readers either, so let’s stick to the first, way more reasonable reading.

Nancy is a young woman who finished high school a few years ago, but still doesn’t really know what she wants in life – who does, really. So she just goes through the motions of her routine in a complete state of emptiness, except, presumably, when she parties and has sex. Those two seem to be her only hobbies in life, which are totally respectable for real life, but a death sentence for any character in a horror film.

That alone already makes her stand out, but she digs even deeper. She’s pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. So, essentially, she breaks any and all “morality” rules of horror within the first five minutes. A feat that is not only commendable, but the secret ingredient to you loving her from the very beginning, regardless of her choices throughout the feature.

Boys and their cheerleaders

Other than a complete badass of a perfectly imperfect character, Last Straw also features a parade of all the types of men any woman would be scared of encountering in a dark alley. You know, the type of men that think of women as property or decorations rather than actual human beings with rights. The most obvious ones are the gang of teenagers who harass Nancy at work by being the most obnoxious clients possible and making all sorts of unsavoury, prehistoric-minded comments to her.

However, behind the big smoke curtain created by the teens that make you wish abortion was encouraged rather than prohibited in the US, are the real scumbags: men who do nothing. Even before the situation escalates, the crew working at the diner, all of them men, do nothing but sit back and watch as a woman who is twenty kilos soaking wet tries to fend off the gang to protect the diner. They even laugh at their comments at some point.

For anyone who needs to read it

Now, uneducated men are tragic, but enablers are positively revolting. A big majority of men think they are so good because they have never raped or punched or even catcalled a woman, but being witness to it and doing nothing puts you in the same group you claim to not be a part of. Turning a blind eye to harassment because the harassers happen to be your friends is as dangerous as doing the harassment yourself, so don’t go to sleep thinking you are not part of the problem. If you are not part of the solution, you ARE part of the problem.

Ranting aside, Last Straw is not only a parade of ridiculous men, but a very satisfying horror film about a woman’s fight for a life she’s not even sure that she wants. The character creation is surprisingly groundbreaking for a film with barely any marketing around it at all, but the result is quite enjoyable for any good-for-her horror lovers out there.

Advice to take from this movie:

• If you live in the US, and a group of teenagers walks in your diner with a dead whatever animal and start harassing you, isn’t that time to pull out a gun and kick them out? Have I watched too many westerns?
• Nothing will get better until people learn to stop thinking of others as beneath them. Prejudice and greed are the big stones in humanity’s shoes.
• Sometimes it feels good to get philosophical over a horror movie.

What’s your take? Have you watched The Last Straw? Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀