Rating: C+
Dir: Warren Skeels
Star: Madison Wolfe, Brec Bassinger, Sean Astin, Ali Larter
This largely unfolds in mid-seventies Florida, where teenager Annie Williams (Wolfe) is struggling to come to terms with approaching adulthood. She has a fraught relationship with her prettier and more popular sister, Margaret (Bassinger). She wants to be kissed, yet is too shy to do anything about it. Oh, and she is increasingly worried that she is being stalked by a white van and its driver. She tells her parents (Astin and Larter, that Lord of the Rings/Final Destination crossover we didn’t know we needed) about her fears. But due to her previous tendency to tell tall tales, they are far from convinced the threat is real. The audience, however, knows otherwise – Annie’s concerns are legit.
Because in a series of flashbacks, we see the driver abducting young women over the previous five years for… unpleasant fates. Well, as unpleasant as the ’15’ certificate will allow, anyway, so it’s mostly implied. It’s just about time for his annual abduction, with Halloween just around the corner. Indeed, not just the time of year may remind you of a certain Carpenter classic. Annie is quite similar to Laurie Strode: chaste, smart and a bit of an outsider. Though this may simply be due to Strode being one of the key templates for the final girl. I note the film here also includes a trip to the drive-in by Annie and her friends, to see Scream Bloody Murder. Skeels knows his proto-slashers, that’s clear.
There is one aspect of this which is truly terrible: the cheap jump scares, accompanied by screeching music cues. These appear right from the start, with the titular vehicle’s first appearance, and each time is more annoying than the next. It is especially irritating, since the rest of the film is largely nuanced and understated. Annie in particular is one of the better teenage characters I’ve seen in a movie for a while. By any standards, she’s likeable and sympathetic. By the standards of the horror genre, she’s a goddamn candidate for sainthood. The family dynamic stuff is also solid. Astin is particularly good as the father, utterly baffled by the emotional and hormonal intricacies of his two daughters. No wonder he goes on business trips.
Less effective are the horror elements. The flashbacks are likely too many, not adding much after the first one. They also definitively answer the question the film seems be half-asking, of whether Annie is letting her fears get the better of her. It’s only at the end – on Halloween night, of course – events achieve a decent level of intensity, after an excess of lurking in the shadows. I was amused by one equine-related payoff to an incident from earlier, and as ’15’-rated horror goes, this is by no means bad. However, it still remains ’15’-rated horror, and that restriction inevitably puts a cap on the intensity it can achieve.
The film is out on DVD, Blu-ray and digital in the UK from 29th September.