It’s good to stumble across a very good film that you haven’t heard anyone else mention, especially when it is a horror film that seems to have been unnoticed by the majority of the horror community, but that also means that you have to be careful. Temper your positive reaction, your enthusiasm about something you want to champion, with some smelling salts that stop you from diving head-first into the standard waters of hyperbole that make up 90% of the internet.
This is me saying that I really enjoyed Last Radio Call, but I am aware that part of that enjoyment may stem from the surprise factor. It was something I hadn’t heard of before this week, and I decided to take a roll of the dice on it.
Written and directed by Isaac Rodriguez, developed and expanded from the idea he utilised in a 2-minute short a few years ago entitled The Cop Cam (I believe), this is presented as a blend of documentary fare and found footage, and it marks Rodriguez out as someone horror fans should definitely be keeping an eye on.
Sarah Froelich plays Sarah Serling, a woman who wants to find out exactly what happened on the last night her husband, a police officer named David Serling (Jason Scarbrough), was seen alive. He and his partner, Giles Ali (Ali Akhafaji) had entered an abandoned building to investigate, but only the partner came back out. Some kind of cover-up is suspected, and Sarah thinks that hiring a documentary crew to tell the tale will help put all the pieces together and encourage some people to be more honest.
With decent performances from everyone involved, the documentary format allowing for a way to avoid giving people headaches for most of the runtime, and a third act that really delivers the horror goods (even if it is very reminiscent of a certain modern “found footage” classic), Last Radio Call should easily please anyone seeking out some thrills and chills. It also helps that the relatively brief runtime, about 75 minutes, stops it from outstaying its welcome.
Ironically, because it is often refreshing to find a horror movie that isn’t trying to be the next big franchise, this is material that I would happily watch being reworked and expanded further. There are definite sequel possibilities here, and I would certainly be keen to see them. As long as Rodriguez keeps sight of the effective scares and atmosphere he gets so right here.
There are some mis-steps here and there, with the actual structure of the film a bit clumsy and forced as we move further away from the straightforward documentary style and more into the visceral scares, but I found that I didn’t mind some inconsistency while I was being kept on edge by the impressively nightmarish visuals that make up the grand finale. Whether you like or dislike this, it’s hard to deny that Rodriguez does well to make the most of all of his resources.
Feel free to adjust my rating down slightly if you think I am still factoring in the “pleasant surprise” aspect of this one.
8/10
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