Hilarious Hulu Black Comedy Horror Is A Healthcare Nightmare
Healthcare in our country is problematic for several reasons, including but not limited to exorbitant premiums that still somehow don’t cover emergency visits, dental procedures that cost thousands of dollars out-of-pocket because getting a new crown on your incisor is considered “cosmetic surgery,” and countless other complaints that we can add to the list. If you’re already fed up with how your health and wellness is handled during your time of need, then you may not want to devote 86 minutes of your time to 12 Hour Shift. But if you have a sense of humor about drug-addicted nurses getting roped into selling stolen organs on the black market, then this pitch-black comedy of errors should be the next title that you queue up on Hulu.
Working A Second Job To Support Herself
12 Hour Shift is, to put it bluntly, an incredibly messed up film that you can’t look away from if you have the stomach for it. The simple storyline involves an opiate-addicted nurse named Mandy (Angela Bettis) who goes through the motions (and withdrawals) while doing her patient rounds on her overnight shift. As incompetent as she may seem at first blush, she’s actually working closely with another nurse named Janet (Brooke Seguin) in a black-market operation that involves stealing organs from the hospital morgue.
Mandy, who can often be spotted stealing morphine from her patients, uses the funds raised from the organ sales to fuel her drug habit, with the assistance of her cousin, Regina (Chloe Farnworth).
Rule #1: Always Double-Check Your Cooler
The source of conflict, and recurring gag in 12 Hour Shift is that Regina likes to keep the organs in a cooler with the cans of soda she purchases from the vending machine near the loading dock where she makes her frequent exchanges with Mandy.
While delivering a stolen kidney to Nicholas (Mick Foley), a dangerous trafficker of myriad illicit substances and body parts, Regina realizes that she never put the kidney back in the cooler, angering Nicholas, who then demands a new kidney within an hour, or else. Since Mandy already did her part in procuring the kidney, she refuses to help Regina any further.
Reacting in the most misguided way possible to this perceived betrayal, a desperate Regina takes matters into her own hands by disguising herself as a nurse and trying to locate a patient she can murder and steal a new kidney from.
Mandy Isn’t The Only Criminal In The Hospital
Meanwhile, 12 Hour Shift introduces several more sources of conflict in the form of police activity in the hospital because an escaped criminal named Jefferson (David Arquette) is occupying one of the rooms while on suicide watch.
Not only is there a heavy police presence in the hospital, but Nicholas sends his goons to retrieve the kidney he already paid for because he’s not just throwing down his money for a couple of cans of soda.
With the hospital on lockdown, and some very dangerous people occupying its interior, it’s up to an apathetic Mandy to make good with Nicholas, rescue her cousin, and steal a kidney, all while trying to evade the clueless police officers who are wholly unaware of her under-the-table side-hustle.
It Keeps Getting Worse
12 Hour Shift, written and directed by Brea Grant (Torn Hearts), is a comedy of errors of the highest order. Given the above rundown, Mandy and Regina are not the heroes of this story; they’re simply the protagonists who we just so happen to be following in this disturbing yet never not hilarious ramshackle affair of addiction, corruption, incompetence, and murder.
While the more reputable medical professionals try to prioritize patient care, absolute bedlam unfolds at the hospital, raising the stakes and extrapolating the premise to levels of absurdity that are commendable.
Streaming 12 Hour Shift On Hulu
GFR SCORE
If you’re looking for a medical drama like Grey’s Anatomy, you won’t find anything close to it while watching 12 Hour Shift. But there’s a certain charm that comes along with watching the most irredeemable characters try to get themselves out of a jam without any regard for the safety of the people around them as the situation gets worse, and worse.
As of this writing, you can stream 12 Hour Shift on Hulu, but make sure you have a clean bill of health first because you’ll probably hate hospitals after watching this one.
