Popcorn, Projectors, and Poor Decisions
There’s a special kind of irony in a movie about a man furious that modern horror films have become cheap and soulless — only for The Last Showing to prove him completely right by being exactly that.
Directed by Phil Hawkins and starring horror legend Robert Englund (yes, Freddy Krueger himself), The Last Showingwants to be a clever meta-thriller about the death of cinema and the obsessive devotion of a man who takes “film purist” a little too literally. What it actually is: a low-budget hostage drama set in a multiplex that feels like Saw remade by the Hallmark Channel.
It’s a movie about a man angry that movies aren’t what they used to be — and boy, does this film prove his point in all the wrong ways.
Plot: Freddy Krueger Goes Full Film School
Robert Englund plays Stuart Lloyd, a bitter ex-projectionist who has seen his beloved 35mm reels replaced by soulless digital projectors and customers who think cinema starts with popcorn. He’s the kind of guy who probably writes angry letters to Sight & Sound and refers to Transformers as “the downfall of art.”
After being demoted to working the concession stand — an act of professional humiliation rivaled only by being forced to butter popcorn for screaming teenagers — Stuart snaps. He decides to take revenge on the modern moviegoing experience by turning the theater itself into his personal horror film set.
His unwitting stars? Martin (Finn Jones, a.k.a. Loras Tyrell from Game of Thrones) and Allie (Emily Berrington, before she upgraded to Humans). They’re a young couple whose idea of romance is making out during The Hills Have Eyes 2 — a movie that itself deserves punishment, but not this kind.
Stuart drugs Allie’s soda, knocks out his manager (Keith Allen, looking like he regrets every second on set), and traps the couple inside the cinema overnight. Then, armed with CCTV cameras, a handheld camcorder, and a voice that sounds like your creepy uncle doing ASMR, he begins filming his “masterpiece.”
It’s like Rear Window meets Final Cut meets “Why did I rent this?”
Robert Englund Deserves Better (and So Do We)
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Robert Englund is fantastic. Even when he’s chewing scenery like it’s stale popcorn, he’s magnetic. He gives Stuart a gleeful theatricality — equal parts mad scientist, bitter cinephile, and deranged grandpa ranting about TikTok.
Unfortunately, he’s also the only thing keeping this film from collapsing under the weight of its own pretensions.
Stuart fancies himself an artist, and the film seems to agree — until it doesn’t. We’re treated to long, self-serious monologues about “the purity of cinema,” as if Quentin Tarantino and Norman Bates had a baby and left it unsupervised in a Cineworld.
Every scene with Englund feels like he’s working in a different movie — one that might actually be fun. The rest of the cast seems to be trapped in a particularly slow episode of Black Mirror.
Our Heroes: Dumb and Dumber (But British)
Finn Jones and Emily Berrington play the unlucky couple trapped in Stuart’s film, and if you’re hoping they’ll be smart, sympathetic, or even mildly interesting — sorry.
Martin is a walking stereotype: the slightly arrogant, vaguely tech-savvy boyfriend who reacts to mortal danger with the emotional range of a breadstick. Allie, meanwhile, exists mainly to whimper, look confused, and prove that chloroform works fast.
Their relationship has all the chemistry of two mannequins left too close together in a department store window. When they’re not making out or making bad decisions, they’re making the audience wish the killer would just speed things up already.
Watching them stumble through the theater, yelling each other’s names and tripping over popcorn buckets, feels less like suspense and more like community theater doing Hostel.
Setting: The World’s Saddest Multiplex
If you thought your local cinema was depressing, The Last Showing says, “Hold my flat Fanta.”
The entire film takes place in a fluorescent-lit megaplex so lifeless it makes The Office look like Studio 54. The empty halls, flickering monitors, and sticky floors should create claustrophobic tension — but instead, it just feels like we’re watching someone get lost in a mall.
And not even a fun mall. The kind of mall where all the stores have closed and the only thing left is a frozen yogurt kiosk run by despair.
The Meta-Horror That Forgot the “Horror” Part
The film wants to be clever — to comment on the voyeurism of cinema and the blurred line between filmmaker and audience. Stuart literally directs his victims, manipulating them like characters in a movie, which could’ve been a brilliant metaphor for creative control.
Instead, it’s executed with the finesse of a freshman film student who just discovered Peeping Tom and thinks they’ve reinvented the medium.
The result is a thriller with no thrills and a horror movie that’s afraid to get its hands dirty. There’s barely any blood, no real scares, and the tension evaporates every time someone stops to monologue about “the integrity of 35mm film.”
It’s like watching Scream rewritten by someone who’s never screamed in their life.
Dialogue: “Did You Just Quote Kubrick at Me?”
The script is a buffet of pretentious nonsense, awkward exposition, and unintentional comedy gold. Stuart’s dialogue swings between creepy menace and film-school manifesto.
At one point, he solemnly declares, “Cinema is dead. I’m just giving it a proper burial.” Another time, he shouts at the CCTV screen, “Emotion! Give me emotion!” like a deranged acting coach who forgot his medication.
The couple’s dialogue isn’t much better. It’s mostly panicked clichés and bad decisions. “We have to get out of here!” “He’s watching us!” “What does he want?” Spoiler: he wants this movie to be good.
No one gets what they want.
Cinematography: Now Showing — Blurry, Unfocused Chaos
For a movie obsessed with the purity of film, The Last Showing sure looks like it was shot on a Nokia flip phone.
The constant switching between CCTV feeds, handheld cameras, and “cinematic” footage feels less like an artistic choice and more like the director lost the tripod halfway through. The lighting is either too dim or too harsh, and the editing has the rhythm of a drunk DJ hitting random buttons.
The only thing more inconsistent than the visuals is the tone — part slasher, part satire, part “please let this end.”
The Ending: Curtain Call of Confusion
Without spoiling too much (because honestly, why ruin the one surprise in this joyless popcorn bucket), the film limps toward a finale that tries to be poetic but lands somewhere between laughable and lazy.
There’s a twist, of course — because this kind of movie always needs one — but it’s less “Wow!” and more “Wait, that’s it?” The final scene plays out like a public service announcement warning filmmakers not to get too clever with their own metaphors.
Robert Englund, Patron Saint of Bad Material
The real tragedy here is that Robert Englund gives it everything. He’s funny, sinister, theatrical — the cinematic equivalent of a vintage car engine revving inside a rusted go-kart.
He deserved a script that matched his energy. Instead, he’s stuck in a movie that thinks being “about movies” is enough to make it smart.
Watching Englund quote Citizen Kane before tasering someone feels like performance art, but not in a good way.
Final Thoughts: Roll Credits, Burn the Reel
The Last Showing could’ve been a sharp, satirical love letter to cinema’s lost soul — a dark reflection on how art, technology, and ego collide. Instead, it’s a tepid, overlong slog that proves the real horror isn’t dying in a theater — it’s having to sit through this.
If this is the “last showing,” then good. Let’s all go home.
Final Verdict:
⭐️⭐️ out of 5.
A film about the death of cinema that accidentally buries itself. Come for Robert Englund, stay for nothing else — not even the credits, which overstay their welcome like everything else in this movie
