2010 Geek Fright Fest: Wind Chill

Wind Chill (2007)
Rated R (for violence and some disturbing images)

Directed by Gregory Jacobs

Starring:
Emily Blunt
Ashton Holmes

This film is a little-known indie horror flick that I happened upon through Fearnet. It's sometimes shown on the Lifetime Movie Network, but is heavily edited for time and content. Wind Chill centers on two unnamed college students driving home for winter break. The girl (Emily Blunt), looking for a ride to her hometown, checks the college ride board and lucks out when a fellow student (Ashton Holmes) is also heading to Delaware. After showing up two hours late and making fun of his car, she spends the majority of their ride chatting to friends on her cell phone. After her ride's annoyance is clear, she hangs up and the two get to know each other. Blunt is a stuck-up engineering major and Holmes is a socially awkward Eastern religions major who has a crush on her. Blunt's character soon realizes that Holmes doesn't live anywhere near her and begins to get creeped out. When he decides to take a "scenic" route, her anxiety builds. In the midst of an argument, the two are run off the road by an oncoming car. The car is undrivable and as the temperature starts to drop, the two students realize they are in more trouble than they thought. Along with the frigid cold, they are tormented by the ghosts of others who died there and they may not survive the night.

In the first hour, this film had serious potential. The cold and the isolation work to create an appropriately eerie mood and had the flick stayed with the "girl trapped in a car with a stalker" plot, it could have been a decent, if predictable thriller. The gotcha subplot about the ghosts and maniacal cop is both lame and confusing, however. I guess the film gets points for originality, but I would have much rather seen where it could have gone if it followed a more common path.

If you happen to catch this flick on LMN or it comes on Fearnet again, it's worth watching for sheer weirdness sake, but don't spend your money on this one.

Fright Rating: 1 1/2 gasps out of a possible five

This film has mild violence the ghosts are vaguely disturbing, but it's not overly scary. It is Rated R, but mostly for language.