Last Straw (2024) review – A Grating Slasher With An Insufferable Protagonist

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are reviewing recent slasher movie Last Straw. I believe this one had a limited festival release in late 2023, but it is only hitting streaming services in the past couple of months.

The weakest horror sub-genre?

The story follows young woman Nancy (Jessica Belkin). Nancy recently discovered that she was pregnant, suffering from morning sickness and the general malaise that comes from being an 18-year-old screw-up with no prospects.

Nancy is dismayed when her dad tells her she has to work the night shift at the family-owned diner. Little does she realise that serving coffee to drunk people will be the least of her concerns, as she will soon be in a fight for her life against a group of vicious killers.

“The format is too mindless to cultivate strong stories. Last Straw falls into the category of movies that simply don’t even manage to get the fundamentals right.”

I genuinely believe that the slasher sub-genre is the weakest in horror. Now, I know that is a controversial statement, but please, hear me out. Decent slashers are extremely rare. Movies like Black Christmas, Halloween, and the more recent In a Violent Nature come along once in a blue moon. Even when they do appear, they still rarely hold up against other horror movies as a whole.

The entire format is too simplistic. It’s too mindless to cultivate strong stories and interesting characters. The formula is too beaten up and played out to provide a capable breeding ground for anything other than mindless kills and horror movie violence. There just isn’t a lot to work with outside of trying to get the fundamentals right: a decent protagonist, an interesting antagonist, some decent kills, etc.

Now don’t get me wrong, slashers have their place. They make great sleepover movies and are perfect when you don’t want to think too hard about what you are watching. There is little better when you are looking for popcorn horror. But too many movies from the genre are barely watchable, while others simply don’t even manage to get the aforementioned fundamentals right. Last Straw falls into the latter category.

This one does everything wrong

I can harp on about everything Last Straw does wrong, but this review would end up extremely long. It, honestly, doesn’t do a whole lot right at all. Director Alan Scott Neal has really tried to go for a somewhat stylised indie horror aesthetic, but it doesn’t feel very genuine.

“Sound production is terrible with frequent boosting of vocals leading to ugly hissing and an excess of ambient background noise. The soundtrack is horrible; legitimately horrible.”

The camerawork is antsy, ranging from trailing shots with a handheld camera to basic shots placing subjects dead centre in a way that, almost, suggests a tape measure was pulled out to ensure equidistant gaps on each side of said subject. The picture is very fuzzy and washed out, and the editing can best be described as highly erratic.

Sound production is terrible with frequent boosting of vocals leading to ugly hissing and an excess of ambient background noise. Voices can be difficult to understand, as well. The soundtrack is horrible; legitimately horrible. Whatever band they struck a deal with is the equivalent of ear cancer and I say that as a fan of alternative music and hardcore punk. The only thing worse is the sound of Nancy’s moaning, which goes on and on and on throughout.

Poor acting and writing

Acting is extremely subpar with few noteworthy performances. Glen Gould does such a poor job as the Sheriff that I thought he was going to turn out to be a bad guy. His delivery was a complete mess. It was nice to see May‘s Jeremy Sisto, but his part is a complete afterthought.

The script is one of the worst I have encountered in a while, with zingers such as “stop raping me with your eyes” uttered by a character who wasn’t even looking at the subject to know where their eyes were focused. It’s really bad.

Scares are completely non-existent. The movie abandons its slasher trappings very early on. Kills that try very hard to be shocking by alternating between off-screen violence and intimate, up-close, on-screen violence fail at both due to the sheer dullness of it all.

Writer Taylor Sardoni clearly struggles with writing for the myriad different personality types here, young women in particular. And while I can applaud the decision to subvert expectation a little somewhere during the middle of the film, taking the plot in a slightly unexpected, non-linear direction… This is all too formulaic and predictable to really offer any sort of story-related intrigue. It’s very obvious where this one is going and not surprising when it actually arrives there. The only surprise is the ending, which is utterly ridiculous and goes way beyond the typical slasher movie farce.

Some huge problems

It would be remiss of me to not mention the casting of a differently-abled person here to be used, pretty much, as the butt of a few jokes. I always applaud diversity in casting, but to cast someone differently abled and then to have characters insult them repeatedly and mock them for their disability is somewhat disgusting.

“I am not sure if I have ever encountered a more unlikeable character in a horror movie in my life. She is crass, rude, obnoxious, needlessly aggressive, and self-pitying.”

This would be all well and good if it served a purpose, but it serves no purpose at all, amounting to little more than an unceremonious exit and a low-brow attempt to affect the audience. Because there was no other way in hell that Sardoni was capable of doing that with this milquetoast story and character line-up.

The biggest issue of all, however, is our protagonist, Nancy. Jessica Belkin tries hard, but I am not sure if I have ever encountered a more unlikeable character in a horror movie in my life. She is crass, rude, obnoxious, needlessly aggressive, ableist, self-pitying, and, generally, completely detestable.

Nancy reeks of “middle-aged men writing young female characters” and suffers for the obvious misogyny of the author. This is far too common in horror lately. Writers are struggling to create enjoyable, relatable, and likeable characters and this movie is no exception.

I really didn’t enjoy it and Nancy is awful

Nancy is needlessly horrible to everyone around her and, when the situation escalates, we are supposed to root for and relate to her struggle. It is, literally, an impossible task as she is so difficult to care about. Everything going wrong in her life is of her own making, so why does the story attempt to make us sympathise with her having an unwanted pregnancy and a job she doesn’t enjoy? That’s life; deal with it or own it.

A scene where she dances around the diner made me cringe right down to my core. It goes on for three minutes; Belkin is a stiff and unremarkable dancer and the whole thing is completely needless. In fact, it actually works contrary to the stress she is, supposedly, facing in life. Why is this such a common trope in horror? The whole genre is becoming increasingly embarrassing as time goes on. This scene adds nothing but awkwardness. Thank God for the fast-forward button.

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Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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