Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Coverage
Alan at Night review
If you stick with it until the end…Alan at Night will leave you with a smile.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Alan at Night
Directed by Jesse Swenson
Written by Jesse Swenson
Starring Chris Ash and Joseph Basquill
Alan at Night Review
I’ve often wondered how much a great ending can lift what comes before it. Obviously, a twist at the end of a story can recontextualize everything that came before. The Sixth Sense is a perfect example of a good movie made great by its jaw dropping twist finale. The trick is what makes that movie unforgettable…but it was a good movie before that. It’s a bit harder to think of a film that was, at best, ok for most of its runtime until the ending (twist or otherwise) elevated it to something more. The obvious reason why is that most stories with great endings will have been written and filmed by people who made a good movie overall. The closest example I can think of is Loop Track. A movie that is interesting if a bit thin for an hour until a wonderful third act.
Alan at Night isn’t a bad movie before it reaches its final moments. It starts off in an interesting way before running out of steam a bit. Honestly, it works better as a dramedy about the perils of living with a roommate than a horror/mystery about the dangers of living with a stranger. I’d describe it as fine. Until and ending which features more of an answer than a twist…but lands the fine plane at a great airport. The destination makes the somewhat languid journey worth the trip. Even though that destination only encompasses a few minutes at the end of the story…it’s really fun. I’m not sure if it could have extended to an entire act like Loop Track’s reveal pulls off…but it certainly would have been nice to see it last at least a few minutes longer.
Alan at Night is the story of a difficult temporary roommate. Jay (Joseph Basquill) needs help covering the rent for a month. His friend and podcast partner Camillo (Jorge Felipe Guevara) had to move out and his girlfriend Sam (Hadley Durkee) has a month left on her lease. When an awkward man named Alan (Chris Ash) moves in…Jay and Camillo begin recording the strange things he does at night.
Jay, at first, attempts to befriend Alan. Alan’s behavior makes that unlikely. The troubles begin quickly as Alan snores like a dinosaur disturbing Jay on the other side of the apartment. Later, Jay and Camillo discover he’s sleeping with his eyes rolled back. Then he’s sleepwalking…and sleep eating. They film his odd nocturnal behavior and find they have quickly become popular on their YouTube channel. Jay wants to take them down…Camillo wants the engagement.
Alan at Night presents its story in interesting ways. Jay and Camillo are recording a podcast after the events of the main story. We watch found footage/mockumentary style presentations of those events. The story is broken into chapters…as the slow crawl towards Alan’s move out date creeps closer by the segment. The actors are very good from top to bottom. It feels like you’re watching real people discussing/living through an odd month of their lives.
Not odd enough, however. The biggest issue with Alan at Night is that it doesn’t have enough ideas to sustain a month of Alan’s escapades. He grows more isolated, less friendly, and, because of his nightly refrigerator raids, much fatter. But there aren’t many new ideas beyond what I’ve already mentioned. There are hints to where Alan at Night is heading in its story’s epilogue…but there aren’t enough moments worthy of watching another segment after the first few.
On the other hand, there is that epilogue. It ties everything together, answers your questions and is a lot of fun. So fun, in fact, that it will almost certainly have you walking away from Alan at Night with a smile. An earned smile, at that. While it may be the only part of the story where Alan at Night cuts fully loose and embraces its wild side…it does prove that “better late than never” still works as a formula.
Scare Value
There’s nothing bad about the bulk of Alan at Night…but I am reporting that after experiencing the joys of its final moments. A pretty good start inevitably gives way to a more monotonous second and third act lacking in innovation. The epilogue pays off everything in a way that turns the final image of Alan at Night into a true high point. Going out on top can do a lot to lift the image of the entire story that came before it. Such is the case here…with a fine independent mockumentary/found footage movie morphing into something even better in its final scene.
