Drawn Into the Night (2022) - The proverbial car crash

This film has to be seen to be believed.  Granted it's not the worst horror/slasher movie I've ever suffered through, but it certainly had its own... feel.  And it wasn't a good one.  Maybe the reason I found it so odd-paced came when I looked into it online.  When I sat down to watch it I noticed it was only just over an hour long, but when I checked online I was informed that it was actually a heavily edited version of a more normal (ninety minute) film of a slightly different name.

That would explain why it feels so rushed.  We're whizzed at breakneck speed through the basic plot/set-up of some cheerleaders have gone missing, police now looking for them and send a - slightly - youngish female cop undercover at the local school.  There she meets some of the worst (and oldest!) cliched teenagers I've ever seen committed to film.

Weirdly, despite the lack of big names in the cast list, the acting itself isn't that bad, plus the film-stock itself if adequate and not grainy like other low budget horror flicks I've stumbled across on various streaming services.  There are even a few well-written lines here and there.

But then there's the plot.  I won't go into too much detail, but it's a - kind of - take on what was going on in the 'Hostel' franchise.  That worked due to its off-the-beaten-path and isolated location.  Here, you probably couldn't get away with that sort of thing with well-to-do middle class teenagers from central California (or wherever it's set).  So you do have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit if you want to buy the overall premise.

As I say, this cut is just over an hour, so it won't take up much of your time.  Once you get a measure for what's happening, you'll probably be able to guess every plot point pretty faithfully right up until the credits roll.  Not the worst, just so odd that the film-makers felt the need to re-release it with a whole half an hour trimmed out.  I wonder what I missed?  I'm guessing not that much.  But then I did make it to the end - a feat which I don't always manage when it comes to the mountains of horror films that have found themselves dumped on a streaming service.

4/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back