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Wind Chill (2007)

DVD Cover (Sony Home Entertainment)
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Overall Rating 58%
Overall Rating
Ranked #3,294
...out of 20,196 movies
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Two college students share a ride home for the holidays, but when they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they are preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: September 17, 2007
Awful, just bloody awful. 0/10.

Well, I recently rejected a review from one of our other reviewers that went something like that, so I suppose that it wouldn't be fair if I turned around and did it myself just a few days later, but really... this was just downright awful. Truthfully, the only positive thing that I can say about the film is that it mentions my home state of Delaware a couple of times, a rarity in... well, just about everything aside from our local news. Other than that, I just can't come up with anything nice to say, so let's just get down to business, shall we?

The storyline goes a little something like this. Desperate nerd (Ashton Holmes) is attracted to bitchy classmate (Emily Blunt). Nerd decides to come up with a scheme to drive Bitch home for the holidays in what he passes off as a friendly gesture, but turns out to be a ruse to get her in the car with him for six hours so that he can watch her paint her toenails and talk on her cell phone. They get into an accident in the middle of nowhere, and the result is that they're forced to sit in the car for the remainder of the movie. We learn that it's cold. Bitch is still living up to her namesake (the characters didn't actually receive proper names, so roll with me here). It's really cold. No, it's really, really fucking cold. There's ghosts wandering the streets. Jesus, it's cold. Let's warm up. It's still cold. Hey, it's snowing... know what that means? Yeah, it's freezing. Look, the ghosts are back. Anti-climatic finish, and roll the credits.

Alright, so I spoiled it for you by telling you that it gets really cold, but you know what? That's the extent of the plot, and that's also what we get from the vast majority of the film. Sure, there's the whole ghost thing, but that really only comes into play three times: once about forty minutes into the film, once in a brief dream sequence, and of course, once for the ending of the film. I fully realize that there's not a whole lot that can be done when your main characters are trapped inside a car for the vast majority of the film, but that's no excuse; after all, Penny Dreadful and countless other films have pulled it off, so there's simply no excuse for this one flopping so hard.

Well, there's not a whole lot of action going on and the storyline is pretty bland, but maybe the two people in the leading roles can save things? Not a chance. To be fair, their acting abilities were decent enough; I don't feel the need to heap praise upon them for their performances here, but I won't gripe about them either. However, the problem lies solely in the script and the horribly clichéd characters that we were stuck with throughout the entire film. We've got the character of Nerd, a guy who just screams out "I'm a little creepy and I may be a loser, but damn it, you're supposed to sympathize with me!" Then we have Bitch, a young woman who... well, she's a bitch. Seriously, what is up with so many films saddling us with bitchy, unsympathetic characters lately? Why should I care about a character who I wanted to see dead five minutes into the running time? I could understand if she was the villain here, but c'mon: when we're supposed to care about a character, you just don't turn her into a stuck-up bitch unless the title of the film is Clueless. I didn't see the word Clueless on the DVD cover, but I sure did see a lot of clueless actions throughout the film itself.

To make things even worse than they already were, the film is shot with little to no lighting aside from a blue tint that was placed on everything in post-production. When you see the stills online (on this very site, perhaps), you'll notice that they're full of natural color and everything looks great. Those stills did not come from the actual film. Imagine going outside in the middle of the night when it's pitch-black out and lighting a lighter: that's about the extent of the light that you'll get for a solid eighty percent of the film. Thanks to this, I literally have a headache as I sit here typing this review after having just sat through the movie, and trust me when I say that that did not help the overall rating.

So, to sum things up: awful, just bloody awful. 0/10.
bluemeanie #1: bluemeanie - added September 17, 2007 at 9:48am
Bizarre. Just about everyone I have spoken with has sang this film's praises. It gets compared to "Wendigo" quite a lot, a horror film I very much enjoyed. Plus, it has a decent cast and just barely missed a theatrical release. Hmmmm. This makes me nervous now.
Chad #2: Chad - added September 17, 2007 at 10:20pm
It actually opened in theaters and brought in something like $32,000 (don't quote me on that number, but it was ridiculously low nonetheless). I just watched Wendigo a couple of days ago, and I enjoyed that one about as much as you did (according to your rating here, anyway) - but this? Ugh.
bluemeanie #3: bluemeanie - added September 18, 2007 at 11:27am
Well, yeah -- they pretty much all open in theatres at some capacity, but this one just barely missed a wide theatrical release. I remember having a release date for a little while, but then it was changed to a direct-to-DVD release. I should be getting it this week some time.
bluemeanie #4: bluemeanie - added October 23, 2007 at 1:22pm
Wow. I think I am going to have to side with you somewhat. I watched this last night and was not impressed. They could have done so much more with this cast and budget, but did not. It felt like the director just didn't know how to handle a horror film. There were a couple of interesting sequences and I would have definitely played up the priests for more than they did. Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes worked well together, but Martin Donovan was miscast and overacted to a staggering degree. I didn't dislike it as much as you did, but I am not far from it. 3/10.
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