Saturday, December 6, 2014

Wind Chill (2007)

After her finals, a college girl trying to get home for Christmas   miraculously finds a listing on the ride board for someone going to Delaware.  When she meets up with the driver, we discover she's a jerk with a bad attitude. She shows up two hours late, and then complains about how far away the guy parked and the guy has too much stuff in the trunk.  (Later we find out she left some of his stuff in the parking lot so she could put her suitcase in the trunk. Seriously? What kind of jerk does that? Also it was unnecessary since there was room in the backseat.)

The girl spends the first part of the journey talking on her phone, which ticks off the guy since part of the ride share experience is providing company for the driver. It's a six hour trip and the guy isn't pleased that she's being so rude.  The girl grudgingly talks to him for a short time and things get creepy since he seems to know a lot about her even though they've never met.  Even creepier, he makes a comment about how she looks good in her glasses, but she's only worn them in the her dorm.

After a stop at a gas station, they get back on the road.  The weather report warns of a storm, but that doesn't stop the guy from veering off the highway onto a snow covered road.  The girl insists he go back, but he says it's a scenic route. Then he says it's a shortcut and eventually her protests cease.  This is strange considering she's already creeped out by the guy, he knows too much about her, and he's taking her down a narrow, barely plowed road and they know there's a storm on the way.

A fair distance down the road, a car going in the opposite direction runs them off the road.  Unable to push their car out of the snow, they realize they're stuck, there's no cell reception, and it's getting dark.  Now they have to figure out how to survive subzero temperatures while trying to figure out if the people they see  walking in the woods are real.

Most of the movie is just the two leads, who are never named, trying to deal with their situation.   It relies on atmosphere rather than blood to set the tone. Whether it's effective or not would depend on what you're used to watching.  I didn't find it scary.

One thing that drove me nuts was the guy shut off the dome light to save the battery, but left the headlights on the whole night. Stupid son of a bitch.

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