Bold in its execution, Alan Scott Neals’ Last Straw takes us down a path less travelled with some twists that work immensely to the films advantage. Jessica Belkin and Taylor Kowalski give it their all and are excellent here with both playing different forms of desperations well.
Young waitress Nancy (Jessica Belkin) is working the overnight shift alone at a rural, roadside diner finds herself in a fight for her life when she’s terrorized by a group of masked assailants. With no one to turn to, she will do everything she can to survive the night, even if it means striking back.
Nancy is having an absolute shocker of a day finding out she is pregnant on a grass verge and then having her car break down, she just wants an easy shift. Sadly, for her, that shockingly bad day is about to mesh deep into the evening to be an absolute nightmare. However, Last Straw revels in having a lot up its sleeve for its audience to keep us firmly on our tippy toes.
Home invasion or single location invasion horror films are generally a dime a dozen and if you have seen one, you have probably seen them all with slight variances here and there. With Last Straw however, we are given something wholly different, for the first half we are given the standard (yet still strongly made) fare and then rather boldly, everything is switched on the audience and we are forced to see things in a different light. It’s a risk that could easily fail and wreck the entire film. Yet Taylor Sardoni’s script makes it work, coupled with how Alan Scott Neal is able to keep the tension omnipresent through this phase in Last Straw, it ends up being an inspired piece of writing.
The idea that we have two characters who are wholly insecure in their places in the world, but both knowing that their current situation just will not suffice is one of the strengths of the film. Nancy doesn’t want to be the manager of her dad’s diner, but she also isn’t sure what exactly it is that she does want and how to get to that point. So she is stuck managing until she does. With Jake, he is in the same position, but because of his brother, he needs to protect and look out for him and has no real options on how else to do that.
They are both stuck and importantly desperate with both Belkin and Kowalski playing them so well. Neither are extremely likeable, Nancy is a “final girl” who is a little too aggressive for her own good. Whereas Jake has all of his own issues going on. These are characters with a lot of depth and both actors are able to sink their teeth into their roles to make them quite importantly, relatable. Which considering the story isn’t always going to be the easiest thing to accomplish.
Power also plays a significant role within Last Straw with Nancy feeling she has lost all of it due to how the group come in and frighten her, so she takes out her anger on the next person who wrongs her, which just so happens to be Jake. So, when the evening comes around, that trope of the single girl alone while being attacked by masked men pops up and whatever power Nancy had is fully removed from her until she decides to fight back.
This is juxtaposed with Jake’s own power issues. He feels he should be the manager, the daughter of the owner of the diner, by being a carer for his brother, some masculine power has been removed from him. Thus when everything hits the fan he yearns for control and power desperately because he never had it. It’s rather fascinating to tie all of this in to a location invasion horror, but all of it has been done so, so well that you can only applaud it.
The shift in the middle of the film as mentioned, should derail proceedings for being too smart, but thanks to the direction, writing, acting and well everything if we are honest, it works like gangbusters. It ups the ante to what has been created and we actively want to see how off the wall things have gotten to get to the events we have reached.
As good as Kowlski is in Last Straw, it is Belkin who blows you away with her performance, it is one you gravitate towards, even despite her characters more prickly demeanour. In the end this is a great siege film with just the right amount of fresh ambition to tick all the boxes. For a debut feature, Alan Scott Neal has hit the ground running.
Last Straw is out on digital platforms now from Blue Finch Film Releasing.
★★★ 1/2
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