12 Hour Shift (2020)
Written and directed by Brea Grant
Starring Angela Bettis, David Arquette and Chloe Farnworth
Running time: 1 hour and 26 minutes
Unrated: contains drug use, organ harvesting, violence and brief rear nudity
by Hunter Bush
Horror comedies are tough to pull off in a way that satisfies both types of fans. It's even harder to manage with comedy this dark. No one ever really talks about "the hilarious world of black-market organ harvesting", ya know? But writer/director Brea Grant largely pulls it off. Not all the time, but many times I found myself chuckling or out-right laughing at some of the comedic beats here.
12 Hour Shift follows Mandy (Angela Bettis of May) on one disastrous shift at the hospital where she works (guess how long the shift is). We meet a bunch of her co-workers and eventually co-conspirators because, as we quickly learn, Mandy isn’t just a regular-degular nurse, she’s also one of a few middle-women in an organ harvesting scheme for some local criminals. Bettis is fantastic at walking the line between the two genres, at times leaning a little heavier one way or the other to make a joke land or to ratchet up the tension.
