Starring: William Ash, Christine Bottomley
Directed by: Mark Tonderai
Released: 13/03/2009
The film starts with an ordinary northern couple arguing on the verge of a break-up, whilst racing down the M1 in the heavy rain at night. The male protagonist, Zakes Abbot (Ash), is driving along English motorways for his temporary job putting up posters at service stations, but secretly hoping to be a writer. Suddenly all vehicles come screeching to a halt due to an unexpected traffic jam, the back door of the lorry in front flies briefly open, and Zakes thinks he has seen a naked, tied-up girl caged inside. Panicked he wakes his girlfriend, Beth (Bottomley), who convinces him to call the police and follow the lorry. Unfortunately the police are no help, and he decides he may have been mistaken. Choosing to ignore it he carries on with his night-job (much to the dismay of Beth). However, abruptly events and priorities turn on their heads as his girlfriend goes missing and Zakes has to single-handedly confront a very real form of evil.
When the film started I was unsure if I was going to warm to it. It appeared to be awkwardly scripted, badly acted, badly characterised and with a mix of strange, seemingly confused accents. However, much to my surprise it went on to be an excellent, quintessentially English piece of low-budget filmmaking – the first time director, Tonderai, manages to produce a neat and highly tense classic thriller. Furthermore, despite first judgements the two leading characters were very convincing in their actions; they stayed away from the ridiculous conventions normally so familiar to horror, where the characters set themselves up for failure. Instead they accurately portrayed the actions and decisions of people in panic. The film, which takes place over the duration of one night with intense (and perhaps over-used) pathetic fallacy ahoy, fully encompasses the dark edginess that I love so much about British film.
Lizzie Goodman
