Roadside

Another disappointing movie. There was just no passion or love behind this paint-by-the-numbers thriller. The production values were good, and the night shots looked well for a low-budget movie. The actors were competent, and I guess they did all they could with the script. But the story was so unimaginative. It's hard to believe there aren't more interesting scripts floating around Hollywood out there than this. There was just nothing to it, and the ending was predictable, lazy, and disappointing. Why go through all the trouble of making a movie when you have nothing to say?

Skip this one.

A couple (not so happily married, but she heavily pregnant) drives at night in icy weather towards family for a Christmas gathering, and are halted by a tree blocking the road. From out of the dark woods a male voice orders them to stay put where they are, the husband in front of the car in the freezing cold, at the threat of getting shot at, which he occasionally does. The guy stays totally anonymous, the couple has no idea why he does this or what he wants, and when asked, he only, in a soft and civilized tone, reacts with enigmatic remarks or counter questions, in the vein of: question: "why are you doing this to us?!" - answer: "why do YOU think I'm doing this to you?" and so on and on.

This weird stalemate takes forever, the clock jumping from one hour to the next, without hardly anything remotely interesting happening, besides the couple furtively trying to communicate to think of a way out. As a bonus we learn some bits about their marital problems. The whole thing finally ends with a very cliché last scene that was totally predictable. Both main characters are extremely unsympathetic, so you couldn't care less what happens to them, and the baddie sounds way too civilized to raise the intended feeling of a horrifying threat. The whole thing is so repetitive and low on action that it became seriously tedious and the opposite of scary, so as a horror flick it failed on all accounts.

The film starts effectively enough. The problem is that it just becomes a another very standard, very predictable, only mildly entertaining horror flick. no real surprises (that ending is super cliché, people aren't going to fall for it). The acting is decent enough, but it does become grating at a certain point (although really, only because the characters themselves do and the writing starts getting worse). But I'm giving it a 5 because at no point is it actually bad, just never very good. Maybe some will find more enjoyment out of this, but for me, not a total waste of time but not a proactive time spend either. So really, depends on you if a viewing is warranted

This movie was decent at the beginning but completely dropped off during the first 20 minutes or so. There was no character development of either the main characters or the antagonist. The ending was completely predictable and way too stupid.

Don't waste your time.

Please, do not throw an hour and a half of your life away on this film. The only good outcome is that my wife forgave me for talking her into watching it.