With air travel, getting home safely after landing can be the hardest part.
(2008) Horror (Truly Indie) Tony Curran, Peyton List, Cameron Goodman, Cullen Douglas, Dave Power, James Snyder, Tom Kemp, Kaylan Tracey, Jen Alison Lewis, James Ryen, Jackie Cowls, Roy Souza, Michael DeMello, Skip Shea, Ylian Alfaro Snyder. Directed by Edward Anderson
2am on a rainy night in L.A. Two beautiful young girls are just landing at the airport after a vacation on the Mexican Riviera. Not a taxi in sight but there is a minibus that is willing to take them wherever they want to go, a parking lot shuttle. From such things horror stories are made.
Said girls are Mel (List) the smart brunette and Jules (Goodman) the flirty brunette. They’re tired and they want to get home and the shuttle looks like their best bet. They aren’t alone though – there are a couple of hunky guys – Matt (Power) and Seth (J. Snyder) who are hoping to pick up on the girls who aren’t particularly interested and a kind of nerdy guy (Douglas) already aboard. There’s also the driver (Curran) who seems friendly enough – at first.
Soon though he’s driving down strange streets in empty, lonely industrial districts. When the minibus gets a flat, there is a little bit of concern but what happens after that turns concern into outright terror.
First-time director Anderson takes a nifty concept and takes it out for a spin with mixed results. The young actors, mostly unknown (although List has an extensive TV background with a good run on The Young and the Restless as well as major roles on shows like Mad Men, The Tomorrow People, Windfall and FlashForward) are solid throughout and Curran does particularly well as the driver who becomes increasingly menacing and creepy.
The violence here can be fairly extreme although it isn’t particularly gory which might disappoint horror fans who like their violence bloody and disgusting. And the sexuality, the other mainstay of horror films, while definitely present may not be enough for the liking of some horror buffs. What Anderson does extremely well is create an atmosphere of tension and suspense. While there are a few too many scenes of the minibus driving aimlessly down empty streets (and unnecessarily as it turns out), what’s happening aboard the bus is always compelling.
Not so the ending which when it comes almost seems like the filmmakers had come up against some sort of time constraint and had to cease production, so they cobbled a quickly shot ending together on the fly. It is most unsatisfying and drops a pretty decent suspense horror film down a whole point.
Needless to say this is more of a good try than a good film. I liked it enough to keep an eye on Anderson for future projects although I can’t quite bring myself to recommend his first film wholeheartedly. Nonetheless for a first effort it certainly is much better than a lot of first time films than I’ve seen.
WHY RENT THIS: Nicely atmospheric. Nifty premise.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Sex and violence kind of disappointing. Ending kind of abrupt and unsatisfying.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some fairly graphic violence as well as brief nudity and a fair amount of foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in 2008.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There is video of the casting sessions.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1,925 on an unreported production budget.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Hostel
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Love Birds
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