Posted: 04/29/2007

Wind Chill

(2007)

by Matt Wedge

When you really take a close look at the nature of recent horror films, they tend to fall into one of two camps. There are the ones that belong in the over-the-top, gore-soaked, loud, choppily edited remake of a far superior film category. Then there are the ones you can pinpoint as taking themselves too seriously by their self-appointed, pretentious label of “psychological thriller.” Now, I’m willing to bet that there are those of you out there who left the theater unable to comprehend or remember why you just spent 10 bucks choosing to actually watch the unnecessary “reimagining” of The Hitcher. Okay, as I suspected, I see several nodding heads. How many of you were left cold by Joel Schumacher’s latest assault on the movie going public, The Number 23 (It’s not a horror film, it’s a psychological thriller!)? Wow, that’s a lot of hands. Okay everyone, thank you for your honesty in my informal poll. Now, all of you who answered in the affirmative about either of those movies, would you enjoy a third option, say a quiet little ghost story about two college kids encountering the supernatural along a stretch of Pennsylvania back roads? I hear a smattering of applause, which would indicate encouragement. That’s what the forces behind Wind Chill thought. Unfortunately, they failed to pull together a coherent enough plot to fill an episode of The X-Files, let alone a 90-minute feature film.

Girl (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada) answers a shared ride ad posted by Boy (Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence), to get home to Delaware for Christmas. Then, for the next thirty minutes, nothing happens as some shallow attempts at character development are attempted. She’s paranoid and perceived as an ice princess who is tired of playing the part of the difficult girl. He’s awkward and shy and therefore not very good at meeting girls. And that’s about all we learn of these two during an interminably long car ride where we don’t even find out their names.

After Boy decides to take a scenic detour to get a little more alone time with Girl, they are run off the road by a car that immediately flees the scene. Needless to say, their car becomes stuck in a snowdrift and they are forced to try and survive the night with its freezing cold temperatures and random appearances by figures that may or may not be ghosts.

It’s after this traditional (some would say clichéd) set-up that the film shows a spark of life. As the temperature drops and the weird occurrences pile up, Girl becomes suspicious of this stranger she is traveling with who seems to know more about her life than he should from their brief conversation. Is she just being paranoid or has she found herself stranded with a stalker? Who are the strange men in robes who occasionally walk by their car and disappear into the surrounding woods? Are they ghosts or just figments of their imagination as they struggle to stay awake and not freeze to death?

It’s during this promising second act that the director, Gregory Jacobs, milks the frozen scenery for every last bit of atmosphere he can. Combined with the honest and effective performances of the young leads, the escalating physical danger of the elements and a few cheap, but well-placed jump scares, the film starts to live up to the promise of an honestly eerie ghost story.

Then the third act rolls around.

As the various questions raised in the previous sixty minutes are either answered with solutions that were sadly obvious to the viewer or are completely ignored altogether, the most glaring problem with the script rises to the surface: What was the point of this story? The climax has little to do with the two characters the viewer has been asked to care about and is one of the most unsatisfying and somewhat confusing conclusions to a movie in recent memory.

Jacobs’ last film, Criminal, was the target of some criticism for being too reliant on plot twists. Maybe he took those complaints a little too seriously, as Wind Chill reveals itself to be far too light on any kind of a story. It ends up being little more than an exercise in atmosphere and genre clichés that goes nowhere, leaving the viewer frustrated.

Matt Wedge is a writer film reviewer living in Chicago.

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