Roadside (DVD)
Starring Ace Marrero, Katie Stegeman, Brad Douglas
Directed by Eric England
Distributed by RLJ/Image Entertainment
Eric England’s Roadside has an incredible opening credits sequence. Simplistic in its approach, it’s little more than animated yellow text on a black background set to some decidedly eerie music. But this is where the film peaks: before it starts. Let that sink in for a moment. Uninspired, lazy, and devoid of an original thought, it’s less a horror film than it is a challenge to see how much of the same ol’ thing you can tolerate before shutting it off and doing something else.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Dan Summers (Ace Marrero) and his pregnant wife, Mindy (Katie Stegeman), are heading to Dan’s sister’s house during the holidays. After a series of close calls with a truck driver, they stop for gas and engage in a bit of obvious foreshadowing and laughable dialogue. As they hit the road yet again, they discover their path is blocked by a large tree, prompting Dan to get out and thus end up the target of a mysterious gunman (Brad Douglas) who remains obscured by the darkness and the trees surrounding the road. As he taunts the couple, the cracks in their seemingly stable relationship are slowly revealed.
Kind of. It barely matters because you’ve seen it all before, and that’s where the trouble starts. Roadside just doesn’t seem to want to do anything to distinguish itself. Its contrived premise can’t be bothered to stray into new territory or put a clever spin on a common story This can be forgivable in the presence of well-written characters or a genuine attempt at creating tension, but this film has neither of those. It’s as by-the-numbers as it comes, from the laughably bad foreshadowing at the beginning to the predictable twist at the abrupt ending. England attempts to inject an air of mystery in the film by keeping the killer and his motivations shrouded in darkness; yet, all he can do is dispense a torrent of ennui as it plods along for ninety offensively dull minutes.
It’s all compounded by the two leads, who play their roles without any enthusiasm or emotion. The chemistry between the two is nonexistent, and even when irrational anger takes hold, it feels forced and stilted. But nothing compares to the gunman himself, whose pre-recorded voice sounds like it’s being piped through speakers in the trees rather than twenty feet away. His lines are delivered in a hilarious monotone reminiscent of a train conductor, providing unintentional humor in a film that tries so hard – and fails – to be anything but a legitimately frightening thriller.
I wish I could say more, but there is really nothing else to say about it that doesn’t come off as horribly mean-spirited, or at least more so than it already is. Roadside is the worst type of horror film: a barely middle-of-the-road effort that can’t be bothered to make a concerted effort to reward your patience or inject new life into a tired premise.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
