Day Shift

Last Friday, Netflix released Day Shift on streaming. Day Shift follows a struggling father, Bud (Jamie Fox) as he uses his pool cleaning business as a front for his real job, hunting vampires. When he is at risk of losing his daughter, Bud must team up with newbie Seth (Dave Franco) as he attempts to get the money to keep his family.

The premise behind this movie was interesting with the main character having a day job as a vampire hunter. I also liked how the horror aspect was handled. It doesn't overdo it with the scariness and ends up being more of a gore action horror film than a jump scare frightening images horror film. Both Jamie Fox and Dave Franco are cast well in their roles, with Fox as the cool confident hunter and Franco as the nerdy rule-following new guy. Their chemistry is also pretty good and made for a lot of humorous moments. The way their relationship is set up makes the movie feel like a buddy cop action comedy which is a fun idea for a vampire film. Finally, the action scenes are well done being able to balance the action while not making it too serious. A great example of this is the hunt in the vampire nest about halfway through the film. It had a lot of action but still a lighter tone in the way the hunters were killing the vampires.

However, this movie really falls apart in the second half of the film. When the story gets to the car chase about halfway through the film, there is a complete genre shift and the buddy cop aspect is completely abandoned. It feels like they took the first half of a good film and got it mixed up with the second half of a bad sequel. Everything that was set up in the first half of the film pretty much gets thrown out in favor of a generic final battle. The chemistry and relationship between Seth and Buddy is completely abandoned in the second half as the two are hardly ever together for the final half of the film. The movie also decides to throw random characters in that have had no role in this story up to this point and make them a major presence in the final part of the film. The finale also ignores all the rules set up throughout the film in regards to vampires with no explanation as to why certain vampires are now different. Finally, the presence of Snoop Dogg in the film seems a bit overdone. At the beginning of the movie, he is thrown in as just a fun cameo but then he shows up later on in the film for really no valid reason other than because the studio wanted more Snoop Dogg in the movie.

Overall, this film has a fun premise and sets up the idea for a fun Buddy Cop vampire hunting movie. Unfortunately, it completely collapses in on itself in the second half of the film by abandoning everything it set up in the first half.

Score: 5.5/10 Grade: C Recommendation: Worth streaming if you already have Netflix

MPAA Rating Disclaimer: This movie is rated R for language and graphic violence. If either of those things bother you, you may want to sit this movie out.