Wind Chill (2007)

APRIL 27, 2007

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, GHOST
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Anyone want to take a guess why Wind Chill is only playing on 49 screens? Here's a hint: because it's a huge waste of time.

Oh crap that was the answer. Oh well.

Many times in this blog I have said that a movie would have been a better 15 minute short film. I could say the same for this, but only if someone went back and inserted 15 minutes worth of interesting material into the film. As it stands, there is precisely ONE nice shot (an almost subliminal wide shot of the snowbound car and a ghost guy with his back to us) and ONE sort of horror-y moment (a ghost opens his mouth and an eel falls out for some goddamn reason). The rest of the movie is of our two leads sitting in a car bickering or talking about random things. Occasionally they see a ghost and walk around a bit before returning to the car, but it's never even remotely suspenseful, scary, or even interesting. Also, the movie laughably attempts to make the song "Walking Around The Christmas Tree" scary by playing it whenever the ghosts are around, but its a moronic idea and a completely failed one at that, to put it nicely.

HAHAHAHA I have to inject here - in the middle of writing this I got up to use the can, grabbing a Fangoria on the way. I happen to flip open to the Wind Chill story and right there, the first 3 paragraphs are basically about how disappointed the writer was to not see anything interesting during their set visit. Don't worry, whoever wrote it, you weren't being given the short straw, for it would have been impossible to see anything interesting during the entire shoot, since no such things occur in the film!

Anyway, what little enjoyment the film offers (besides Clint Mansell's score, which is great, like many of his scores are) is wondering why anyone would want to spend a whole movie with these people (the characters have no names by the way. The credits list them as Guy and Girl). We meet her first, and she's highly unlikeable. But she needs a ride home to Delaware (look, how fucking half-assed does a movie have to be to make goddamn DELAWARE the primary destination of your main character? Jesus.). So she meets the guy (I'm sorry, Guy) via rideshare at the college, and as we find out, he doesn't even live in Delaware. He set up the whole rideshare thing as an excuse to spend 6 hrs with the girl (I mean, Girl) because he thinks she's cute. Later, he reveals he also somehow found out what all her favorite foods are. So our hero is a creepy stalker and our heroine is a snobby bitch. Yay!

The film is also Poseidon-esque in revealing the character's (numerous) previous jobs, allowing them to know how to dress wounds, how FM radios work, etc. And the dialogue is random enough to amuse (at one point, they argue about lasik eye surgery, of all things). But unless you are like me and think people talking about olives for no reason is funny, I can't see why this film would possibly entertain anyone (and it barely entertained me, olive discussion or not).

Most puzzling is why the film goes out of its way to rip off Carnival of Souls and then not bother to deliver the ending. Neither of our characters are dead, despite strange dialogue about how he is stuck in a repeating cycle and she appears to be invisible to every character besides Guy. But I guess revealing one or both of them have been dead through the whole movie would have taken some sort of "cinematic highlight" and thus it wouldn't have fit with the rest of the movie.

And for the love of the game, the film can't even be bothered to earn its R rating! No gore. No nudity. No profanity. The one moment of violence occurs when Guy swings some sort of metal pole at a ghost. This results in them being back inside the car with the pole stuck to his hand. Whatever, movie.

What say you?

7 comments:

  1. Maybe it's because my expectations were so low after reading your review but I have to admit I kinda liked "Wind Chill." Yes I would have liked nudity. Yes I would have liked Gore. But something about the simplicity of the story and location, from a filmmaking stand point, held my attention.

    Or it could have been the fact that "Girl" had a serious young Gabrielle Anwar vibe going on. (FYI, if you want some Emily blunt nudity check out "My Summer of Love.")

    Anyway, the whole thing made me wish I had 20 grand and such capable actors so I could have gone out and shot this thing and made a boatload of dough.

    And did you notice that Clooney and Soderbergh were producers?? Wierd.

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  2. Oh wait. I just figured out that the director is Soderbergh's First A.D.

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  3. I always assumed this one would play better at home.... Penny Dreadful is very similar and I liked that.

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  4. Really? I thought you hated Penny Dreadful. I'll have to check it out. I kept hearing how awful all the After Dark movies were (I only saw Gravedancers and it gets a B for effort I suppose) I never felt like renting any of the others.

    Have you seen any of this years "After Dark" festival films?

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  5. No... not yet. I had seen one, Unearthed, but it got pulled from it? Which is fine cuz that movie is a steaming pile.

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  6. I really liked Wind Chill. The acting was great, atmosphere was good, and its simple plot worked. SUre, it loses itself somewhat towards the end, but then the very ending is pulled off really nicely. Also, they never fall in love, which is a cliche, which was cool that the movie didnt fall for that. And the characters were very well characterized, thats what the movie really is about. If it had gore it would not fit the mood, which is an old fasioned ghost story.

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  7. I was going to watch this. Not after reading. Thanks for the review. Now I don't have to waste my time.

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