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A female
student hitches a ride to Delaware with a
classmate who she barely knows. The creepy thing is
that he seems to know just about everything about
her. When they take a shortcut on a small road,
things go from bad to worse. As they crash into a
pile of snow, they're soon terrorized by evil spirits
that have died on that exact same road. But what is
real, and what isn't?
This is, as far as I can remember, the first movie that
I've seen where not a single character has a name. Even
the end credits state the two main characters as Guy
and Girl, and come to think of it, I don't think that
they mentioned each others names even once. Naturally
this could make one a bit sceptical, and the fact that
it bombed in the box office doesn't really help either
(yes, believe it or not - this DID get a limited
theatrical release). But to my surprise I found Wind
Chill to be quite eerie and occasionally even scary.
The story revolves around Emily Blunt who plays a
female student who's hitched a ride back to Delaware
for the holidays together with a classmate. At first
I thought that this might be a "The Hitcher"-like
movie as the classmate has some serious stalker
qualities. He knows everything about her, even how
she looks in glasses even though she never wears them
outside the dorm. But it doesn't take long for the
two students to crash into a pile of snow in the
middle of nowhere where they soon find themselves
terrorized by evil ghosts.
My mind was instantly drawn to "Penny Dreadful" as most
of the movie takes place inside the car. Does it work
better this time? Not really. But just like with Penny
Dreadful, this is far from a bad movie. Emily Blunt
made sure of that. After having just been a fashion
fanatic in "The Devil Wears Prada", Emily proves that
she is truly a chameleon as she takes on her deep and
interesting character in Wind Chill brilliantly. See,
Emily's character isn't a stereotype at all, she's a
clever girl with issues just like the rest of us. She
reacts in realistic ways to various situations and she
still remains likeable.
But enough about Emily. What about the movie? Well,
it has its ups and downs. It's got some genuinely
creepy scenes and even scared the hell out of me at
one point. I rarely scream but for once I actually
did - and it was great! Bonus points for that. The
cinematography is also beautiful and the director
uses enough interesting angles so that the viewer
won't loose interest - despite the fact that most of
the movie takes place inside a cold car. Speaking of
cold, I believed every second of it. You could really
feel the cold spreading out from your TV-screen and
into your room. This amped up the intensity of the
movie for sure.
However, we also have some bad things in here. Such as
the story which really isn't all that great. It's
repetitive and occasionally silly. There were way too
many ghosts, annoying subplots that didn't really
lead anywhere (even though I loved to see Chelan
Simmons on the screen) and a villain who comes along
every time a song plays on the radio. It all got a
bit tedious after a while. Ultimately though, Wind
Chill is a decent horror movie with a dedicated cast
and crew. I couldn't help but to feel that this
should probably have been shown in the After Dark
Horror Fest rather than get its own limited theatrical
release, but that's just me. Decent movie but nothing
we haven't seen before.
No.
Not a whole lot to say here to be honest with you.
It's got the atmosphere, it's got the scares, it's
got the talent, it just hasn't got a premise interesting
enough. Wind Chill is a decent movie made out of a
poor script and I'm sure that they couldn't have made
it any better than it was. The plot wasn't very good,
there were too many ghosts, and even though it scared
the hell out of me one time, one scare just isn't
enough for me. Good luck to Emily Blunt though who's
an up and coming actress for sure.
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