If there’s one thing Los Angeles is known for beyond the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, it’s for the perpetually perfect weather. Even if you aren’t a local resident, you know that Southern California as a whole is known for its lack of rainfall and its nearly year-round idyllic temperatures. When it Rains in LA , written by John Sillup and directed by David M. Parks, attempts to capitalize on this notion by using it as a horror backdrop, but ultimately falls into a soggy mess.

The film opens with Sasha (Monroe Cline), an Eastern European who discovers her much older beau, Nate (Eric Roberts) lying dead in their home. This just so happens to occur right after he receives a mysterious mask that supposedly belonged to an ancient god. Grieving over this sudden loss, Sasha reaches out to her friends in L.A., and takes up the opportunity to fly out to visit them for an escape from her pain.

Those friends – Tatia (Natasha Sticklin), Alice (Taylor Brianna), Leese (Paris Simone), and Mark (Felix Merback), all live together in a surprisingly posh home. Their dynamic is strained, at best, and all seem to have vastly differing personalities for a group of people who have agreed to live together as roommates. 

Nevertheless, Sasha jumps on a plane to stay with them, and in the process meets dashing pilot Harry (Thomas Gipson) on her flight over to the U.S. It seems as though her sadness isn’t long lived, as the two instantly have an apparent attraction and connection. Once Sasha arrives, an unrelenting rainstorm begins to punish Los Angeles, which is noted by many of the characters commenting as often as they can about how unusual of an occurrence this is. Not long after, strange events begin to take place, including threatening phone calls, and odd strangers who seem to make an appearance no matter where Sasha and her friends go. 

The main problem with When it Rains in LA is that it doesn’t quite seem to know what type of movie it wants to be. It has a fairly short run time of just over an hour, but it takes well over half of that for anything substantial to take place. For a film that’s under 90 minutes, that’s simply too much time to get going. Based on the title, and the many references to the unusual rainstorm, the viewer is led to believe that the significance of this event is far more important than it really is.

For a movie to be classified as horror, it needs to establish itself as such much sooner into the story than this film manages to achieve. Far too much time is spent on the drama amongst the varying personalities, and the ho-hum night of going out on the town, then there is the actual crux of the plot. Once matters finally get going, there’s only about 20 minutes left, and by then, the vast majority of the audience will have already decided that not only do they not like these people, they don’t really care what happens to them in any capacity.

It’s unfortunate that more time isn’t spent on what that opening scene sets up, because that could have made for an intriguing tale. Instead, we are forced to watch young Los Angelenos, who inexplicably all seem to not like each other, spend a rather boring night out on the town while it rains. 

If there’s anything to salvage this, it’s the cinematography, which excels at capturing quite a few impressive overhead shots of the city, as well as adding to the suspense of that very short last act. It’s unusual to say, but this is one of the rare films that could have benefitted in an extra 20 minutes or so to give us more time to care about these people, cut out the slog of them hanging out, and get to the horror aspects.