I was going to tell you everything eventually.
In this low-budget but atmospheric horror chiller, a couple of college students head back home for the Christmas holiday, but they soon find themselves stranded in a snowstorm on a deserted rural road. The plummeting temperatures would be deadly enough on their own, but there are more evil forces at work on this particular country road and that will make surviving the night a hellish ordeal. Emily Blunt, hot off of her profile-raising supporting turn in The Devil Wears Prada the previous year, is really excellent as the female lead and Ashton Holmes is also very good as the male lead. The movie is about ninety percent just the two of them and they hold the screen very well. Keep an eye out for Martin Donovan in a small, unfortunately underwritten role; his first scene is one of the creepiest in the movie. I enjoyed the first third of the movie the most probably because the movie takes the times to actually let us get to know the characters and it has the nerve to make neither of them particularly likable. When they start the six-hour drive, these two kids don’t know each other very well and they pretty quickly figure out that the more they get to know each other, the less they like each other and their abrasive relationship has some nice energy. The middle third, once they’re stranded is pretty good; it’s a beautifully shot movie really and the dark, snowy atmosphere really communicates a palpable chill to the viewer. But the film then gets, in my opinion, too ambitious and it starts doing some weird time jumps and dream sequences until, by the end, I was actually confused about the chronology of some scenes in that last third and, when your movie is basically two people sitting in a car, that’s the kind of thing that really shouldn’t be an issue. That’s too bad because the movie does want to have an emotional ending and it is the character stuff that works the best. Watching these two people who really don’t like each other much at all slowly come to care about each other while trapped in this deadly situation was compelling and believable. Even with the confusion, the ending does still have a bit of an emotional kick, so I think, if the movie had simplified the plot a bit and streamlined some things, it might have been downright devastating. As it is, while I found it enjoyable enough to watch, it misses the opportunity to be really excellent. It’s not the worst low-budget horror flick I’ve ever seen by a stretch, but it’s not one I’m going to exactly boost for either. 2 ½ stars.
tl;dr – atmospheric visuals, an excellent lead performance from Emily Blunt & some nice character work elevate this indie horror thriller; the story unfortunately gets silly though. 2 ½ stars.