Night Patrol is a Frankenstein of Missed Opportunities

Night Patrol

★ ½

Night Patrol is a film with a promising premise that starts off captivating and quickly evolves into a narrative filled with missed opportunities, trading horror for confusion. It’s a gangland story where the cops are the bad guys, set around a Los Angeles neighborhood where the Crips and Bloods are still at odds. What’s interesting about this concept? The night patrol is a task force of cops that only work at night. Because they’re vampires.

Ethan Hawkins (Justin Long) is a senior cop with his best friend Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler) as his partner. Ethan wants to join the night patrol task force, known for their twilight brutality, to discover how his dad Sarge (Dermot Mulroney)—once on the patrol himself—died. Xavier is a cop because he wants to make a difference and be an example to his gangster brother Wazi (RJ Cyler).

Justin Long as Hawkins and Jermaine Fowler as Xavier
© 2026 RLJE Films / Shudder

As we start our descent into the nonsensical, Ethan murders Wazi’s girlfriend Primo (Zuri Reed) as a final audition to get on the patrol. Apparently the LAPD has found all of the corrupt, racist cops and put them all on one task force.

Primo is the sister of Three Deuce (Flying Lotus), a gang leader whose crew is composed of conspiracy theorists. When he and his men check out the crime scene themselves, they’re more concerned with what kind of monster did this rather than Primo’s body in pieces next to her car.

Justin Long as Hawkins
© 2026 RLJE Films / Shudder

As Ethan officially becomes a night patroller, he must still do one more thing: join the vampire clan in their undeadness. We’re told he has powers, we’re shown his powers but they’re not explained well and not all that interesting. There’s a force beyond the grave that tries to control him, though he tries to fight it, because he still sees himself as a good person.

Even though he’s a cold-blooded killer.

That’s kind of the point, I guess—having watched the film, I still don’t really know. Or care all that much. Ethan’s supposed to be conflicted, but what we really get is Long making fun of the Microsoft Windows guy in those early 2000s commercials. But, you know, as a gruff action hero. In another film, Long’s action acting chops would certainly fare better.

When Three Deuce and his team started getting into monster conspiracies, I was genuinely excited to see where the filmmakers would take us. To my dismay, they abandoned this pot of gold for cheap jokes and crummy vampire shoot-em-up violence.

CM Punk as Marcus
© 2026 RLJE Films / Shudder

Night Patrol is presented as raw film, lending an independent feel to it. At first it was reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez’s entry into the Grindhouse double feature Planet Terror. Rough scene cuts, a gritty film look with campy characters performed by actors happy to just be in a b-movie. Rather than an homage to grindhouse fare, this film becomes a monster unto its own—a Frankenstein of awful.

What really could have worked is turning a dynamic that we’ve seen before on its head—adding monster mash to gangland violence. At least it gave two rival gangs something to join together and fight against.

The film did manage to be more brutal than its own fearsome antagonists—in the way it failed to stick the landing on every promising setup. Instead, it landed on its own wooden stake. One that might not kill vampires, but the entire concept of the film.