The Last Night at Tremore Beach Review: Terribly Paced, Too Long

In this Netflix psychological thriller miniseries, composer and pianist Álex retreats to a remote coastal village in the middle of nowhere to finish a project where his closest neighbours live miles away. However, when a dreadful storm causes a shocking accident, he starts to have terrifying visions about his neighbours.

The series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of 60 – 80 minutes.

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

The Last Night at Tremore Beach Review

The first episode of this huge series is so fascinating, that you will be compelled to keep watching to figure out what’s happening in Alex’s life after he gets struck by lightning. This isn’t to say that his life wasn’t thoroughly odd before the lightning strike, but things just get weirder on steroids afterwards. Is it a mental breakdown or something more sinister? Is it the stress or something more? These questions constantly leave you to delve deeper into the runtime and Alex’s life.

But, at over 60 minutes per episode, The Last Night at Tremore Beach starts to get a little tiring after a while, especially because it gets a bit confusing about where it is going with the story. There’s his past with his mother, which showcases a mental illness that might have been passed down to Alex but, again, the series showcases that it might also be something more than that. I am not really sure and the series keeps it a bit too ambiguous to tie all the loose ends. You are intrigued at first as you try to figure out what the heck is happening but the series takes so long to get to (some) point that it loses its charm.

Director Oriol Paulo has created some of the most interesting movies to date including The Body, The Invisible Guest, Mirage and God’s Crooked Lines. Thus, the expectations from this psychological thriller were high for me. But after a while, this 2024 series starts to get a bit too convoluted to truly make an impact, especially because the series refuses to give us anything more than ambiguity for most of its runtime. It feels so slow sometimes and the pacing suffers a lot. Although it does help in creating tension, the thrill of the core story suffers thoroughly.

I want to mention that there is a whole sequence in episode 4 involving Judy that is nothing short of horrifying and traumatising. Major trigger warning for anyone who delves into this series, it doesn’t spare any detail to leave us horrified by her recounting. Actress Ana Polvorosa is so fantastic, you feel every feeling through her performance and it stays with you long after it’s over. However, I must ask myself the point of this addition to the story because dumping this amount of trauma on the viewers seems unnecessary and solely adds to the shock factor.

I found that to be the case for a lot of things in the series. I think the series needed a shorter runtime and a script that knew where it was going. For example, that horrendous sexual assault sequence that encapsulates the entirety of episode 4 was only a segway to introduce Alex to a psychiatrist. There are less invasive and traumatising ways of introducing characters and the audience to such information. There are many different sequences such as this (and nearly as traumatising) that just don’t fit right in the overarching storyline.

Either way, it’s the performances that are the real winner here. Even though all the characters aren’t the best, the actors do a phenomenal job with what they are given and deliver memorable performances for all 8 episodes. Even though the series falls flat, it’s the actors who keep you hooked on the story with their talents. That being said, I wish some of the characters had more to them so that the actors had something better to hold on to, but that’s neither here nor there.

Also Read: Don’t Move Review: Wonderfully Written Characters Held Back by the Plot

The sequences featuring Alex and his relationship with his mother are probably the highlight of this show. Nora Navas is excellent. She comes in quite late into the runtime but leaves such a lasting impression that she’s a force to reckon with. It’s these moments that feel intense and claustrophobic but the series loses steam soon after, leaving us to feel bored with its awful pacing. That being said, I will give it credit for keeping us guessing about what happened to Alex and making us root for him, after all the insanity that he has gone through in his life.

Final Thoughts

There is so much going on in The Last Night at Tremore Beach that it loses itself in its story. There’s an interesting, sympathetic and emotional story here about mental illness and finding & forgiving oneself. There’s scope here that will steal your heart and leave you amazed. But the series forgets itself too many times, stuck in one thing or another and ruining the pacing and, in turn, the thrill of the complex storyline. That being said, I found myself moved in the end; in spite of the pacing and the bloated storyline, there’s something about this series that really sticks with you.

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