By Night's End Movie Review - Beware Of This Badass Female

Despite few missteps, By Night's End is entertaining enough thanks to the likable presence of Michelle Rose and Walker Whited's palatable direction.

Judging by its trailer, the chances of being fooled into expecting a mediocre B-movie out of By Night's End is very high. On the surface, director Walker Whited's film exhibits qualities of a home-invasion thriller. If described in a nutshell, By Night's End is about a man attempting to search a couple's house to retrieve a valuable thing. This "thing" is a mystery. For comparison, if this "thing" is the Ring, then the man is Gollum. You can almost hear him say "my precious" when he first catches a glimpse of it. By Night's End teases us with the content of this "thing." Is it money? A bucket full of gold? An expensive antique? The reveal is okayish but By Night's End more or less uses this plot point as a catalyst to invoke a repressed past and obtain closure for its characters.

Following their daughter's tragic death, Heather (a very good Michelle Rose) and Mark (Kurt Yue) shift to a new house. Heather is an ex-sergeant currently working at a company with her father. Mark is unemployed. The flow of cash is tight enough to raise uncertainty on steak for Christmas. Soon, another problem would crawl up in the list. Events turn after a stranger's visit goes fatally wrong. His request to search the house and an offer of $10,000 is turned down by a bullet. Mark slips. A question races inside - What is something so important present here that the stranger offered such a significant amount? He makes a deal with his reluctant wife to search the property for one hour and then call in the incident as self-defence.

Little do the couple realize that anything valuable comes with the baggage of evil. This mood is introduced by Moody (Michael Aaron Milligan). In one of the effective scenes, he shoots an arrow right through an officer's neck. Heather and Mark are suspended with more trouble. Mark exclaims, "2 hours ago, it was self-defence! Now it is murder!" No shit Sherlock, all thanks to you. If you can get past few facepalm-y decisions, By Night's End will sporadically reward with scenes like the one with the fake bomb. Shot in one confined location, Walker Whited uses the length and breadth of the space for an almost enjoyable cat-and-mouse game. Heather finds a way to escape the attic, and this path is retraced again when the house is gassed. Given its limited setting, the movie could have benefited from the feeling of claustrophobia, which I never felt.

By Night's End though, does a remarkable job in erupting grief in a tense situation. The bad guy's search for the "thing" acts as a bridge to fill the emotional gap between Heather and Mark. In the attic, Heather and Mark are visually separated by a line. This is the last time they would be apart as any void within them will be filled. The scene after that, where someone is pulled, is poorly staged. You can see it coming. Yet, despite many shortcomings, By Night's End is a lot better film than the trailers lead you to believe. It would be exciting to see what Walker Whited could do with more budget and a fine script.

Note - BY NIGHT’S END is available on various digital platforms (Amazon, iTunes, DirecTV, FlixFling, Google Play, Vudu and AT&T).

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