After Hours (Short)
It’s hard to know what’s more frustrating- a feature film that just seems to peter off at the end, or a short film that stops just when it appears to start. The latter feels like the case with Michael Aguiar’s “After Hours,” which grabs us for the first, say 10 minutes before ending abruptly, and with more questions left than answers. Up until that moment, it is an effective little thriller, with a grabbing introduction and follow-through, but when it ends, it’s so sudden we feel like something was missing from the equation.
The film starts with a familiar conceit- an employee at a store after hours. She is locking things up, but she isn’t alone. Someone is in there with her, but she can’t see them. She calls for help, but no one answers on the other line. A co-worker comes in the next morning, only to find her dead. The police detective (Bill Oberst Jr.) recognizes her from another case he is handling, a harassment case, which hits home for him. He takes the surveillance tape with him to watch, and goes home to watch it.
I wish I could say I was going to stop there to save the surprises for you, but with the exception of the identity of the killer, which leaves more questions than answers, there aren’t any surprises. Adam Weber’s screenplay just ends, and rather than jumping in suspense, we’re left thinking, “That’s it?” Aguiar’s direction, but of situations and of the actors, is effective, and the set-up is compelling, if familiar, but it feels incomplete. Not bad, though, because it checks off a lot of boxes of what makes a very good horror thriller, but I went in to the credits feeling a bit underwhelmed by how things were left. Maybe one more shot before cutting to the credits, of the killer back at the scene of the original crime, would have left me more satisfied than I was. I just feel like this ending would work in some cases, but in this case, with the surprise it offers, the movie ends before it should, even if it’s just needing a few seconds more of film.
