The trailer for The Dead of Night leaves one with the impression of a revival of 80s-era slasher films injected into a contemporary home invasion film. This expectation is quickly established in the beginning of the film, writing a check it definitely cannot cash, ultimately leaving the viewer a mixture of confusion and disappointed.

The Dead of Night starts with a good Samaritan driving down a dirt highway until he comes across what he mistakes as an injured person in the middle of a road, very reminiscent of the opening set piece of Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. Murderer A, named Coyote for the coyote pelt used as a mask, plays dead, luring the driver out of his car, only to be ambushed by Murderer B, Fox (you can guess how he gets that name). The camera doesn’t blink as we watch the masked pair make grisly work of the poor guy.

And this is where the biggest problem with the movie lies. With this first glimpse into the world, the viewer has an expectation that they’re in for a slasher film in the tradition of showcasing visceral murders performed by people versed in exploiting social contracts. But that’s not what we get at all.

As the movie moves forward, we’re introduced to a litany of characters in an attempt to build a rich world with a vast ensemble. At the local rodeo, we meet Richard Hall (Mark Speno) who is the local rich guy running for mayor, and we eventually learn he’s buying up ranches. We meet the ill-fated couple Maddie Hall (Charlotte McKee) and Colt (Darius Homayoun). We meet a deputy (Matthew Lawrence) who seems to have a thing for June (Colby Crain) who works for Earl (a devastatingly underused Lance Henriksen). And Earl somehow has a crumbled up missing poster for Maddie and Colt he shares with the main character, Tommy (Jake Etheridge), less than 12 hours after they’ve gone missing.

It’s a lot, and it leaves the viewer wondering who’s important and who isn’t.

Deputy Walker (Matthew Lawrence) giving June (Colby Crain) a hard time for wanting to leave this small desert town.

We get a fun tense moment as Maddie and Colt are tormented by Coyote and Fox, but both deaths are done off camera. It seems like a weird, voyeuristic complaint to have, but an expectation was set very prominently at the top of the film. It’s also frustrating as the entire second act is void of any real action, and a cowboy soap opera sets in. We do get an odd scene where the deputy and sheriff discover the couple’s corpses, but it’s lacking energy and doesn’t affect the story at all. It’s just there to show the aftermath to the viewer.

When the action kicks back in during the third act, most of the murders continue to be off camera. That’s what makes the opening scene all the more frustrating and out of place. It was a visceral and horrific introduction to the movie, raising the expectations moving forward. Once we get to the third act, the expectation of 80s-era in-your-face death scenes goes unmet.

So all in all, The Dead of Night is a frustrating movie. The action sequences all lack real terror – except for the very first one. And it’s all the more frustrating because that scene really captures the kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe of being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the clutches of psychopaths. You feel bad for this hapless driver as his life vanishes from his eyes, and the camera stays with him through the whole process.

However, that palpable horror is missing from the entirety of the rest of the film, which has elements at the climax that pull the rug out from the viewer in a jarring way.

Watch the trailer, though, and imagine a movie that’s more terrifying, more bloody, and has a whole lot more Lance Henriksen in it.