Last Night at Terrace Lanes came out to rent on Tuesday, Jan. 16. The film takes place at a bowling alley, as Kennedy and her dad have to survive the invasion of murderous cult members.

The biggest positive here is the unique location of a bowling alley. It provides for some fun, comedic kills with different items and just a classic retro look and feel. The flick is also only 75 minutes long, so it moves by fairly quickly.

While I did like the setup here, unfortunately it fails to do much exciting with it. Most likely due to a smaller budget, there’s not much gore being shown. The kills are very tamed down, and that was disappointing. Along with that, it was extremely hard to get invested at times due to the performances. Mainly in the first 30 minutes, the acting was very challenging to engage with — after that it got much better, however.

Plain and simple, this is a weak script. Lore behind the cult wasn’t explored much, and we never really get a true answer as to why the bowling alley is of significance. This caused a lack of tension, and I never really sensed the threat that I should have.

Overall, Last Night at Terrace Lanes fails to live up to the whacky nature of its premise. There isn’t enough gore, the cults’ intentions aren’t explored enough and the acting is choppy at times. I loved the simplicity of this story, but it didn’t do anything memorable in the end.

Rating: 2 out of 5