Alone at Night (2022)

I am a bit conflicted about “Alone at Night.” It clearly has some problems, starting with the title itself. The movie was apparently originally titled “18 & over” and the movie itself still sports this title. The re-titling appears to be a last minute marketing change to try to convince people that the movie is different than it actually is, and it’s never a good sign when a movie does that.”Alone at Night” is the story of Vicky (Ashley Benson), a young woman who just broke up with her boyfriend and was kicked out of their New York home. She travels to the town she grew up in to stay at her cousin’s house in an attempt to mentally recover, and she will have a week all alone at the house. She is also a cam-girl (her cam girl act involves putting on a purple wig), and so she figures she can spend the week camming and making a whole lot of money. And we spend the week with her as she cams, hangs around, and hears rumors of a killer nearby…As I said, the movie has issues. She is supposed to be isolated, and yet there is a seemingly endless stream of men who just happen to stop by this distant house, and each one is more annoying than the previous. Pamela Anderson plays the local sheriff and sort of seems like she’s supposed to be comic relief but never really fits. And there is a weird subplot about a strange “Pandemic Reality Show” starring Paris Hilton that we spend an inordinate amount of time watching (it’s supposed to be Vicky’s favorite show).But for some reason I enjoyed it a bit more than I should have. I suspect some of that is due to Ashley Benson, who makes a very appealing protagonist. And I was able to figure out the killer from actual clues that were given, which is always nice.Hard to really recommend it, but I sort of enjoyed it and there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. I know that’s faint praise, but still…