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SYNOPSIS:
Desperate to get to Delaware for Christmas, a college student
catches a ride with a strange classmate. As soon as she begins
to uncover he knows a little too much about her, the stranger
decides to take a shortcut down a remote country road. Caught
in a raging snowstorm, the young travellers are suddenly forced
off the road by a mysterious car. Stranded, they soon realize
the cold is the least of their worries.
MOVIE
REVIEW
At first
glance, we are betting that no one in the right mind would
pick this DVD up for a nice movie night out at home: It looks
like a C-grade horror movie with a disc cover designed by
an intern with bad font choice (the chalky red font type looks
amateurish) and a tagline (Catch Your Death, how creative
is that?) which is tackily bad. But the movie is an efficient
horror thriller that delivers in terms of shock and paranoia.
We are guessing that teenage adolescents will dig flicks like
this.
The brief
and no-nonsense 91-minute movie tells the story of two college
students who drive home in a car for the holidays. They experience
some scary supernatural sightings when their vehicle breaks
down on a deserted stretch of road.
Starring
the lovely Emily Blunt (The Summer of Love, The Devil Wears
Prada) and the affable Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence)
as “Girl” and “Guy” (we thought this
is rather cute), the movie is a two-man performance which
has most of the scenes taking place in the car most of the
time. Kids with fear for tight places will find this movie
disturbing because of its various claustrophobic sequences.
The movie
plays mind games with you, and it plays them really well.
Coupled with the captivating performances of the young stars
and the tight editing by Lee Percy (Maria Full of Grace, The
Ice Harvest), the chilliness of the movie can be felt immensely
throughout.
It is
interesting to see some big names on the movie’s credit
list. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh are the executive
producers of this UK-USA collaboration. Director Gregory Jacobs
(who worked as assistant director on Clooney’s Solaris
and Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11/12/13) does not resort
to gore, violence and cheap scare tactics to make you jump.
Who
cares if the movie’s plot does not make much sense?
Or that it does not discuss important issues like globalization
and politics? Or that it does not make the world a better
place? We are almost sure that it’ll make for a good
fright on a boring weekday night, if you can get pass the
bland DVD cover.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 DVD contains a 17-minute feature “The
Making of Wind Chill”, where the cast and crew
talk about how difficult it is to work on a constantly cold
set, and how tricky it is to find spots on the road where
they can film at. There is also a Commentary Track where the
movie’s director and writers talk about how they are
inspired originally by a story idea involving a haunted car,
and how the snow flakes are actually made of yucky dried potato
flakes.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Despite the movie’s constantly darkly-lit sequences,
the disc’s visual transfer is still clear enough for
us to figure out what’s happening. There are English,
Spanish Portuguese and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options
to choose from.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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