"Some stations never close — and neither does the nightmare."
In Open 24 Hours, the neon glow of an all-night gas station becomes the last refuge — and the ultimate trap — for a woman haunted by her past. Mary White, freshly released from prison, takes a graveyard-shift job at a remote filling station. Her crime? Setting fire to her boyfriend James Lincoln Fields — a charismatic but sadistic serial killer — after discovering the truth about his crimes. Now, the law may have set her free, but the memories refuse to loosen their grip. Every flicker of light, every creak in the darkness, feels like a reminder that James isn’t finished with her yet.
The night begins with oppressive stillness, broken only by the hum of fluorescent lights and the hiss of the coffee machine. But as the hours drag on, strange events begin to unfold. Customers arrive with unnerving familiarity, voices whisper over the phone, and shadowy figures linger just beyond the reach of the station’s lights. Mary’s grip on reality frays — is James back from the dead, or is her trauma playing cruel tricks on her?
Her paranoia isn’t unfounded. The isolated station becomes a hunting ground, where every knock on the glass could mean danger, and every shadow could hide a predator. Mary is forced to confront more than her memories — she must survive the long, suffocating hours until dawn, with no backup but her own resourcefulness. The night turns into a test of nerve, where hallucinations blur into reality, and trust becomes a liability.
Director Padraig Reynolds paints the gas station as both sanctuary and prison, using the cold, artificial light to amplify the sense of exposure and vulnerability. Vanessa Grasse delivers a tense, layered performance as Mary — fragile yet ferociously determined — capturing the raw terror of a woman trapped between past horrors and present threats. By the time the sun rises, Open 24 Hours has transformed into a relentless descent into paranoia, survival, and the lingering chill of knowing that fear doesn’t sleep.
