4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher delivers what it promises, a quick four-minute slasher experience. It follows a young man on his way home at night. It is directed and written by Nicholas Michael Jacobs.

The acting is ok, but there is almost no dialogue. There isn’t a lot to say regarding characterization. The only major relationship is between cat and mouse. The portrayal of this cat-and-mouse game is as rudimentary as it gets. It’s so matter-of-fact it fails to squeeze a drop of suspense from me.

The lighting is not the quality one would hope for. The pacing is poor. There are two scenes of our protagonist walking straight into the distance for far too long. The way these moments linger feels like a waste of time. It comes off as filler to get Night Slasher to four minutes. There is a single use of digital effects before credits. It doesn’t look good, but I’ve certainly seen worse. The killer looks great. They did a nice job on the mask. The music is also solid.

Different creators have different ways of crafting narratives. Dan Harmon has his story circle. Trey Parker and Matt Stone talk about using “therefore” and “but” whilst avoiding the use of “and then.” The events in Night Slasher progress in an “and then” manner. The logical cohesion between a major scene and the scene before it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Something happens because it’s a slasher sort of thing to happen and for seemingly no other reason. This is one of those things that draws the line between the mediocre slasher experiences and the good ones.

Nicholas Michael Jacobs has made horror shorts for six years, and it is clear he has a deep love for the genre. I chose to watch some of his previous shorts. The difference between his earliest work and Night Slasher is almost negligible. I am not seeing six years of growth. I’m not saying there aren’t six years of growth, but I am not seeing it. I reviewed Twisted Fiction last year. It had to function with natural lighting and run-of-the-mill cameras, but the acting was great, the ideas were interesting, and it was well-edited. WNUF Halloween Special had a budget of $1,500, and it’s wonderful. Creep was made with “0 dollars,” and it’s excellent. Marble Hornets, the classic YouTube slender man series, still functions well today. Budget is a hurdle, but it isn’t an excuse.

If Nicholas Michael Jacobs is doing this for fun with his friends, I hope he continues to do so. This rating means nothing compared to that experience and the fun of creation. I’d like to find an excuse for why this is what’s being conjured after 6 years of doing this, but I look at his peers in film, YouTube, and TikTok, and I genuinely don’t think there is one. 4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher is not among his more interesting or more successful projects.

3 out of 10