Expecting the usual half-hearted horror flick that is regurgitated on a near-weekly basis by Hollywood, I was quite pleased to discover that Wind Chill is actually quite good, even though certain elements are under-developed. The writers are to be praised for devoting so much time to developing its main characters but, conversely to most horror fare, this character development is focused on at the cost of the creepier elements of the tale.
Ashton Holmes plays a vaguely nerdish college student who manages to manipulate the girl he fancies (Emily Blunt) into sharing a lift home in his wreck of a car for the Christmas break. The girl has a prickly personality to say the least, and is soon suspecting that her fellow traveller is actually a stalker. Perhaps the film's one true concession to genre stereotype is that the guy stubbornly ignores local advice to stick to the highway, choosing instead to take a snow-covered B-road, and inevitably ending up facing the wrong way in a snow bank much to his pretty companion's annoyance.
Given that much of the screen time is given to Holmes and Blunt, it's fortunate that they play off each other pretty well. The premise of the story Nietzche's theory of eternal recurrence is introduced early on in the film in a couple of throwaway lines, before the viewer is left to relate what is happening on the screen to the resonance of the theory. This is something that isn't going to be done with lots of bloody gore and stalk-and-slash techniques, which is why you'll hear anguished cries of 'it's too slow!' from the multiplex crowd. And if the gradual thawing of the couple's relationship is predictable, it is also believable and, ultimately, refuses to pander to the industry's demand for neat happy endings. This one is recommended.
Ashton Holmes plays a vaguely nerdish college student who manages to manipulate the girl he fancies (Emily Blunt) into sharing a lift home in his wreck of a car for the Christmas break. The girl has a prickly personality to say the least, and is soon suspecting that her fellow traveller is actually a stalker. Perhaps the film's one true concession to genre stereotype is that the guy stubbornly ignores local advice to stick to the highway, choosing instead to take a snow-covered B-road, and inevitably ending up facing the wrong way in a snow bank much to his pretty companion's annoyance.
Given that much of the screen time is given to Holmes and Blunt, it's fortunate that they play off each other pretty well. The premise of the story Nietzche's theory of eternal recurrence is introduced early on in the film in a couple of throwaway lines, before the viewer is left to relate what is happening on the screen to the resonance of the theory. This is something that isn't going to be done with lots of bloody gore and stalk-and-slash techniques, which is why you'll hear anguished cries of 'it's too slow!' from the multiplex crowd. And if the gradual thawing of the couple's relationship is predictable, it is also believable and, ultimately, refuses to pander to the industry's demand for neat happy endings. This one is recommended.