Reviews
‘Night Patrol’ Review: Vampiric Cop Horror Undone by Messy Execution
I really wanted to love Night Patrol. And to be quite honest, I did for the first 40 minutes or so. The set up has the right amount of intrigue, the characters have great potential and chemistry, and the world building begins to polish its concepts nicely around its midpoint. But as this action horror exploitation film progresses, strange choices in the screenplay and editing tarnish what it sets up.
What you’re fed is filling at first, but soon the cup runs dry. While its final moments do feel grand and fun, they are undoubtedly clumsy. And though Night Patrol’s chances of garnering a cult following seem highly likely just for the niche concept it hits on, the back half of the film leaves a sour aftertaste that makes it hard to enjoy as easily as most cult classics.
Night Patrol Sees Gang Members Take On Vampiric Cops
Crip Wazi (RJ Cyler) has his night take a sharp turn for the worse after a hookup with his Piru lover gets interrupted. But his misfortune isn’t from members of either gang spotting them: it’s the LAPD who arrive on the scene. What starts as a stop and search turns bloody fast as the mysterious unit of cops known as Night Patrol kill her suddenly. The newest member, Hawkins (Justin Long), doesn’t flinch as he becomes part of the deadly police gang in ritualistic fashion.
Narrowly escaping the encounter, Wazi returns home to the Colonial Courts to try and get help from the local Pirus, led by Bornelius (Freddie Gibbs). The plan is to avenge their own, but the entire neighborhood ends up in the crosshairs of the monstrous task force. Where the residents see a place and people to protect, Night Patrol sees little more than a chance to feed on its black and brown citizens.
A Strong Cast Led by RJ Cyler Delivers
At its core, it’s a solid concept: rival gangs band together with guns and African mysticism to fight some literal blood-sucking racist cops. If Pirus and Crips all got along, they might be able to gun down some vampires by the end of this movie. Its fun ideas are matched with an eclectic but appropriate cast: Freddie Gibbs, Flying Lotus, RJ Cyler, Justin Long, Dermot Mulroney, and most surprisingly of all Phillip Brooks, who you might know as WWE superstar CM Punk. Cyler, star of The Harder They Fall, very much carries with his performance here as he did there. He gets to show his emotional range throughout the film and works well with what he’s given. He’s only outpaced by Gibbs in terms of entertainment for the sheer number of great reactions Bornelius gets.
Justin Long’s physical performance oscillates from impressive to underwhelming here, but he is about as compelling as Cyler, all things considered. One scene in particular where he has an emotional outpouring as he discovers what Night Patrol is really all about struck hard. Brooks also manages to sell his vitriolic bastard of a character well, putting another mark down on his resume as a welcome sight in horror going forward.
A Clever but Confused Script
But unfortunately, fun performances can’t make up for the feet of clay the movie stands on. Its true weakness is in its storytelling and editing, which chops scenes and sections of the film up in a way that’s impossible to ignore.
Now, credit where it’s due. On a meta-textual level, the script has some clever flourishes. Its Black characters don’t start the movie on the back foot, intimately aware of the existence of Night Patrol, even if they can’t pin down exactly what kind of monsters they’re up against. There’s something to be said here of what it reflects: the acute awareness Black Americans are forced to have about the dangers of interacting with the wrong police officers and being at the mercy of violent policing.
The characters arm themselves well, they don’t walk into scenarios recklessly or leave themselves open to be torn apart (at least, not until late in the film). Wazi’s mother who evangelizes on the Zulu peoples and their occult knowledge, has been preparing for them for a long time. And when the vampires show up at their doorstep, the counter-offensive is quick.
In Spite of Night Patrol’s Charm, It’s A Plot Stretched Too Thin
I bring this up because, for as thoughtful and clever as that all is, those quality decisions highlight the uninspired and dull ones as well. The plot is still undeniably stretched out in an odd way. Part of the problem is the fact that there are effectively three different main characters in this story: Wazi, Hawkins, and Xavier (played by Jermaine Fowler). Xavier is Wazi’s cop brother, and Hawkins’ partner before he joins Night Patrol, making him the bridge between the two. But it’s a rickety bridge, and little care is paid to Xavier as a character who is one-dimensional in the end and really just human shaped fuel to keep the plot going. Hawkins gets a similar demotion later on but at least gets to be part of the ending and have a decent amount of screentime.
This problem of a plot stretched thin between characters is exacerbated by a slightly bloated runtime and a very disorderly rearrangement of scenes that plagues its back half. The characters have interactions in the third act that should have been established in the first or second. Expository and comedic beats that don’t fit the dire nature of the situation make for tonal road bumps. In some cases, continuity of where characters were and what they said is thrown out the window entirely. There’s a big reveal for comedic effect in the film’s last scenes, but its undercut by what a character said just minutes prior spoiling the joke.
A Nightmare of Editing Hamstrings Ryan Prows Fantastic Directing
Director Ryan Prows has proven himself highly competent in the past with his feature Lowlife, and his handling of the camera in this film is no different; it even indicates some serious growth. He has a firm grasp of lighting his locations and framing his characters, he’s good at setting a tone. I particularly love how he handles the sequence where the cops inevitably and violently storm the Colonial Courts. It manages to be highly stylized while capturing the genuine horror of the attack, and he demonstrates a clear sense of balancing those cinematic elements. He is, without a doubt, highly skilled.
But unfortunately, the way that Night Patrol is plotted, paced, and cut together tears apart and reassembles Prows solid vision, taking what could be a great horror film and seriously hamstringing it. It’s a flesh golem of great ideas, stitched with the right organs in the wrong places—and some of its guts missing altogether by the time those credits roll.
This month on Horror Press, we’re discussing international horror. What jumped to mind immediately for me was a witchy classic that is one of my biggest blind spots. That would be the Swedish docudrama Häxan, also known in English as Witchcraft Through the Ages. Benjamin Christensen’s wildly controversial filmic essay is notorious among horror fans, and it’s been on my watchlist forever. I’ve had ample time to watch this movie, considering it debuted more than seven decades before I was born. So I’m at last correcting a major oversight. Happy Halloween season, y’all!
Does Häxan Play Well in 2026?
Even though I knew the basics of what Häxan was and where it came from, it still surprised me. Although its thesis is mostly a foundation upon which to build phantasmagorical images, Häxan very much believes in that thesis. And it has honestly aged pretty damn well. Other than the use of the word “hysteria” to describe predominantly female mental illness. But for that to be the part that’s aged worse in a movie that’s more than a century old? Not too shabby. Beyond that, it’s essentially an early feminist text. It retells witch mythology mostly to draw a direct parallel between medieval superstition and 1920s mental illness stigma. You could turn its points into a Halloween-themed BlueSky mental health thread, and you’d barely have to change the language.
Unfortunately, due to its nature as a silent film, the majority of this message is delivered via intertitles. A lot of the time, it feels like you’re literally just sitting there reading an essay. Although I believe classic cinema shouldn’t be tampered with, I get why the 1968 re-release added William S. Burroughs narration. That’s where Häxan has aged the worst. White text on a black screen is not the reason I go to the movies. The more text-heavy portions can start to feel really dry. However…
Häxan Is a Fascinating and Bone-Chilling Object
First of all, I don’t mean to flat-out dismiss the essay portions of the film. They largely present interesting, well-researched information. And I really dug how it becomes more and more clear that Benjamin Christensen himself is the one writing the intertitles. His personality and the personalities of his actors become part of the story he’s telling. This helps Häxan feel more personal and easy to connect to, even across oceans of time.
Then there are the witchcraft recreations, which are for sure the main reason anybody throws this movie on these days. They’re right to do so, because those recreations are freaking phenomenal. Christensen & Co. use every tool in the early filmmaker’s arsenal to bring a series of truly macabre visions to life. All manner of demons and monsters parade across the screen, in a flurry that rivals any modern frightfest. There’s some impeccable makeup that feels handmade but nevertheless wholly organic in an appropriately surreal way. There’s also some reverse footage and stop-motion used to create effects that would bring a tear to Georges Méliès’ eye. It’s an endlessly creative, wholly committed romp of demonic pleasures. Even the horror scenes that don’t involve demons tend to work. I’m particularly fond of a hypnotized, knife-wielding nun who wouldn’t be out of place on a 1970s grindhouse screen.
Should You Give It a Watch?
Even though the movie is tame in terms of gore and violence, what they do show still feels genuinely shocking. While this is pure exploitation mayhem, this material also serves to underline the thesis. It plunges audiences into the lurid, heady world of witchcraft. In its operatic way, it evokes the headspace of the people who were so afraid of it, explaining their fears. While Häxan isn’t perfect, it’s a miracle it existed when it did, and it’s still well worth a watch today.
Of all the horror movies to be described as a runaway train, Rob Savage’s Other Mommy is the first in recent memory to have that quality as a negative. A more focused piece of over-the-top supernatural horror would capitalize on starting at a high speed and just gunning it. It would get increasingly faster, more horrific with its effects and reveals, more stunning and spectacle-filled. But Other Mommy never utilizes the momentum it starts with. It stays at the same steady, uncomfortable pace. And it gets old, very fast.
Other Mommy Is Missing a First Act
The movie begins in what should have been the second act; it never does stop haunting the narrative that Other Mommy feels like it’s missing 30 minutes of setup and 10 minutes of breathing room that would actually get you to care about what’s happening. Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) is a young girl already well acquainted with a creature known as Other Mommy. A supernatural being that can change shape and size to her liking, becoming anyone she wants and then some. The entity only desires one thing: for Bela to let it into her heart and give it a new body.
Bela’s parents, Ursula (played by Jessica Chastain, in a dual role as the Other Mommy) and Russell (Jay Duplass), become aware of the space-bending creature in the film’s very first scenes. Soon, they’re on the run from the creature that’s trying to tear the already strained family apart. But the overwrought family drama of an unfaithful mother and a scatterbrained father forced to hide their struggling marriage from their kid is smothered. Much like Chastain’s performance, it’s drowned out by a barrage of aggressive and unimpressive digital effects trying to milk every single moment for a fright, desperate to keep audiences’ attention.
A Clumsy Digital Effects Showcase That Smothers the Story to Death
Other Mommy is primarily concerned with showing off its titular monster and her reality-bending powers, jumping from one “scare filled”, dreamlike sequence to the next; heavy, heavy quotes on scare filled. You become inured to every trick the film has as it shows you all the most unimaginative uses of a shapeshifting, size changing monster possible. There is no clever framing or use of shadow to obscure it, no restraint at all really. The directing is frenetic and clumsy, but it makes sure to make the monster as clear as possible. It’s all out in the open, plain to see, and bizarrely mundane for a depiction of a demonic interloper.
Every jumpscare-a-minute scene moves too fast and is too overlit to ever scare. The bright and inappropriate atmosphere fails the already rough looking digital effects. What it amounts to is a choppily edited and disjointed assortment of scenes, with weak imitations of Trevor Henderson style abominations center stage. Tall and small and melty variations of a CGI Chastain, none of them work to evoke tension or fear or any emotion other than the occasional eyebrow raise for how goofy some of them look.
There are a few moments where Chastain teases at playing the monster effectively without face and body morphing effects, sporting a genuinely disturbing countenance and creepy voice. But as soon as these fragments of interest come, they’re washed away by warping her into a lanky, slinking monster of ridiculous proportions. What we get out of the dual role is a boring creature for the feature, and a dry, one-dimensional protagonist, both squandering the phenomenal actor Chastain is.
Other Mommy is Full of Dull Performances and Squandered Potential
Duplass offers little with his supporting role, providing flat dialogue and flatter comic relief as a middling SNL sketch’s idea of a clownish father. It’s worth noting Clark actually provides the most interesting performance among the entire cast, a feat impressive from such a young child actor. But even her endearing and heart-breaking time as Bela is too little and too shadowed by the faulty composition of the film it’s trapped in.
The trailer for Other Mommy may have caught audiences off guard at the cinema in the past few months. But ultimately, that trailer showed the movie’s entire hand. Other Mommy is a pasty, crooked collage of elements from the supernatural horror movies producer James Wan made the backbone of the genre a decade ago. That doesn’t make it a throwback; just a rehash of cliches, with no structure and no sense of cohesion. It never amounts to anything more interesting than what the marketing material showed, which is a tragic end for a film, if there ever was one.
