Mixing gritty action with horror isn’t a new idea, we’ve seen it before with the likes of Dog Soldiers and the use of werewolves. Here they use nocturnal monsters that–you know what? It’s vampires. They use vampires without saying vampires. When done well, the mix of scares and action can hit in all the right spots. But this is a tough balancing act to do. Unfortunately, Wrong Place Wrong Time doesn’t make it through unscathed due to pacing, editing and sound missing the mark like so many stray bullets.

The action starts straight away when we jump right into a street level gun fight between a masked group and law enforcement. After losses on both sides, we learn about the masked group and what brought them together. With “one last job” worth a cool billion each, they decide to give it a go but this being a movie, things don’t go as planned. As such, the team end up on the run which leads them to the middle of no where and to a house that proves to be worse than what they are running from.

All the actors do well enough with the material on hand. Sage (Franziska Schissler) is strong in the lead. She portrays a tough exterior while showing fear when needed. Another stand out is Natasha (Bianca Stein) as one of the people pulled into the horror. She played the victim without coming off cringy. The others are just kind of there. Nothing really bad, but nothing really good either.

While the acting was overall just okay, the action itself fared better. With the effects being gruesome and the fights being impactful. There are some good ideas that come into play. One particular scene involved a body cam POV and was really well done. It’s moments like these that show the potential of the film. It also makes the missteps all the more frustrating.

The pacing is all over the place. The first ten to fifteen minutes is shoot um up action and then it slows to a crawl then it jumps around from plot point to plot point without explanation. I guess one of the members of the team was a Vampire the whole time or something, but it doesn’t really tell you. The pacing I could live with, but the editing only added to the confusion. There were times I thought I missed entire scenes. But that’s just how it was put together.

Sound design is important in a horror or action movie. It can elevate the experience and add to the tension. Wrong Place Wrong Time stumbles here too. With the dialog being okay one moment then totally inaudible the next. While the sound design itself was solid and mostly consistent, having to keep your thumb on the volume for fear of missing something was less than ideal.

Wrong Place Wrong Time has some great ideas, and it showed some off, but it’s held back by the messy storytelling, uneven audio, and inconsistent editing. With that said, it’s still an entertaining movie. Unlike the team entering the creepy vampire house, just know what to expect.