Remember that films like Last Night at Terrace Lanes are not big Hollywood productions. With about one-thirtieth of the budget, director Jamie Nash and company are swinging for the fences and you have to give them props for it, even if it doesn’t end up being a homerun. But hey, getting on base is still good, and there are definitely some surprises to this low-budget slasher.
Based on the real-life Terrace Lanes bowling alley in Frederick, MD closing its doors forever after 60 years in May 2022, Nash, Adam Cesare (script), and Jenna St. John (story) had only eight weeks from writing to shooting* before it was destroyed forever to make way for new townhomes. It’s a miracle this movie got made at all, and it’s a quick shot of down and dirty cult fun that doesn’t mind getting some blood on you. There’s a kind of go-for-broke spirit that Nash keeps rolling (no pun intended) through this film’s blood and bones even if it doesn’t hit those riotous notes hard enough.
Still though the film gets the most out of that disused bowling alley, burrowing itself into its nooks and crannies so its heroes can hide or wait or survive. Taking a little bit from Robert Resnikoff’s The First Power we have a cult whose murders have coincided with points on a map tracing out an inverted five-point star with its final dot right at Terrace Lanes. This is where the star will complete itself and transform the cult into whatever (the movie isn’t really clear). But in order to do that they’ve got to get rid of everyone in there, including father-daughter duo Bruce (Ken Arnold) and Kennedy (Francesca Capaldi).
The tension between this estranged family is obvious; while Bruce mans maintenance/bartending duties Kennedy has come in with her friend Tess (Mia Rae Roberts) and two boys, hiding from Bruce when and where she can. (There’s more to the friendship between Kennedy and Tess than meets the eye, the tension of which Nash uses to underline their scenes together.) But it’s when they get separated by the cult invading the bowling alley and killing everyone inside that their special skills (as former bowling teammates) are put into play to save their friends.
For a low-budget movie Last Night at Terrace Lanes has moments of greatness in its filmmaking/acting departments. Francesca Capaldi and Ken Arnold really nail this one to the floor with solid, fun performances as two family members at odds with each other. There’s something intense yet delightfully hilarious about Arnold’s take on his character, a man who has had the worst of what life could throw at him a divorce, a child who won’t even acknowledge him, a dead-end job at a bowling alley but still manages to find his own man boyish brand of fun in the little things. Responding to him, Capaldi plays teenage rebel all out complete with eye-rolling/chuffing insolently at dad and his relative immaturity balanced against just being his daughter sweetly enough.
Once inside the bowling alley, Nash goes all out gore shots and implied violence with exposition in between. It’s a fun mix of low-budget tactics and high-concept execution, some work, some don’t, but that’s the game with movies like these. There are dialogue sequences between our heroes that go on (and turn up) to lengths entire “We’ll get through this and be a family again” discussions behind the pinsetters that make us wonder if the villains can hear them. But it’s waved away by plot contrivances and conveniences, and it’s mostly forgivable.
Sure, there are amateurish things like supposed live security camera footage showing someone running around when we just saw them brutally murdered by hoodie-wearing cultists minutes before. But it’s balanced out by the script not taking prisoners, never embodied more than seeing one of our film’s butt-monkeys plead for his life then not get what he wanted even after giving up valuable information. Nash has the gall to stick to his guns and not shy away from the grosser aspects of what this night has in store.
In that sense, this low-budget slasher becomes something worthy of praise. Not because it can go there, but simply because it must. This mishmash throwback to cult films (check out a similar movie called The Void set in you guessed it another about-to-be-closed building) and survival horror may not be the flashiest or most polished, but who asked for that? Certainly not me I’ve worked on projects like these where I could see all sorts of tricks being used but had fun watching anyway. Last Night at Terrace Lanes is an excellent homage to a town landmark while also enjoying itself getting bloody hands. Somewhere between being one of those “movies” you made with your friends on weekends and having enough oomph to transcend its small-scale trappings because everybody involved brings their a game, it’s a testament to the spirit of making movies when and how you can, no matter the budget.
Watch Last Night at Terrace Lanes 2024 For Free On Putlocker.