Southbound Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An anthology of interconnected tales that occur along a mysterious highway.

Review: This could have been something exceptional but nope. The core premise is good, and the idea of connecting the segments was certainly welcomed, but the stories are nonsensical and uninspired. Individual segments fail to stand on their own merits and the interwoven plot is equally incoherent. I feel like there was a lack of coordination at play or that the execution failed at some point. There are redeeming qualities, no doubt, but it's hard to overlook the bland, final impression especially when the, nearly, boundless potential was clear for anyone to see.

The Way Out: This and the last segment, I suppose, serve as a wraparound in a loose sense. Needless to say, the film does not come out swinging as you'd hope. The viewer is immediately thrust into a world they don't understand and given little to work with. Even when factoring in the last segment, this doesn't really fill in the void of unanswered questions. What we are shown are two men, covered in blood, driving to a gas station in the desert. They see a phantom-like creature getting closer as they drive. Once at the gas station, the people there act weird as mild, supernatural phenomenon ensues. Deciding to bail on the situation, the two men find themselves driving in a loop whereby they keep coming back to the gas station until they can't take it any longer. These floating, grim reaper-things appear and kill one of the guys while luring the other into a motel room. In the room, the guy is put into another time loop where he is trying to catch a little girl that appears to be his dead daughter. And that's it. No context, no setup, no explanations...just...here you go. This wouldn't bother me, per se, if things came full circle in the way the filmmakers had intended but they don't.

Siren: Right next door, at the motel from the previous tale, three skanks emerge to hit the road. They're in some band or whatever, and apparently their fourth band mate died. They get a flat tire when driving down the highway and wait for someone to help. A weird couple appears and offers to take the skanks to their place. Of course there is an overtly creepy vibe, but the skanks rest up and have an unusual dinner with more weirdos. The main skank realizes something isn't right as her friends are losing their minds. Eventually the main skank notices everyone, including her two friends, are participating in, what appears to be, a satanic ritual. When the main skank runs away, back to the highway, she is hit by car driven by a guy talking on the phone. The end...? Wow, what a waste. Once more, nothing is explained and little inference is given for anything.

The Accident: I guess this is the best tale...though, that's not saying much. Picking up where the last segment ended, the driver guy is reluctant to help the skank although she is super fucked up from the crash. He finally calls 911 and is gradually talked through steps to help the skank. Driving to a nearby town, the man searches for a hospital and carries the skank into the one he finds. The town is strangely desolate and the hospital is empty but in a way to imply shit went down here. With the skank slowly dying, the people on the phone try to guide the man through makeshift surgery to save her. When the skank dies anyway, the people on the phone begin laughing at him. Apparently they are some kind of demons as we will learn, but, in the context of this segment--big shock--nothing is explained. Unable to escape the abandoned hospital, the man sits around until the people on the phone decide to let him go. They magically provide him with new clothes and a new car as if nothing ever happened. The man rides off into the sunset, or sunrise in this case, and that is that. Yippee. I guess the technical ending point is when we see that one of the demons was just hanging out, talking on a payphone, and trying to look like fucking Aileen Wuornos. That's just fantastic.

Jailbreak: This is the worst tale of the bunch. So Aileen, tired after a hard day's work at the payphone, goes into some bar for demon beer. After the demons argue about shutting the dumb door, a guy comes in with a shotgun that can, for no real reason, hurt these godforsaken creatures. This guy wants to find his sister who has been missing for years and somehow knows she's here somewhere. The demon bartender takes the guy to a magical, Harry Potter-ish portal behind an ice cream parlor which is a moronic concept unto itself. Inside, the guy finds his sister who is giving demons tattoos for eternity it would seem. Ugh...fuck. Was this really the best some writer could come up with? Whatever, dude. The guy takes the sister with him, and they ride off into the desert where they are apparently not supposed to go all of a sudden? When they stop for a second, the sister says she belongs in this town, and the brother is dragged away by old, naked guys. Surrre, why not, right? This segment ends with the sister going back to her ice cream-tattoo parlor just as a jailbait-esque chick looks on.

The Way In: Closing us out is a half-assed attempt to bring the story full circle. Jailbait and her parents are at the ice cream parlor supposedly hanging out before she goes to college. So Jailbait is legal? Meh, still calling her that. When Jailbait and her family go to their motel, they are stalked by three men in masks. It's implied that the dad of Jailbait killed the daughter of the guy from the first segment as we realize this is the situation that led to them being so bloody. We don't learn why he killed the daughter or any kind of scenario...but who needs pesky things like story development?! They kill Jailbait's mom too probably because she starred in that "The Wicker Man" remake! At first they want to let Jailbait live, but they kill her anyway for fighting them. This leads to those grim reaper things coming out of Jailbait and her family with little explanation, of course. Their third guy gets dragged to hell by rape-tentacles because I guess it fits in with the whole jailbait motif. We then cut to the opening sequence as we have entered a kind of time loop with all the stories resetting. Umm...no thanks, I think I'll pass on second helpings. And that's all she wrote. I've read reviews trying to make sense of this shit, but I think they're reaching to the sky to fill in the gaps for a film that didn't care enough to try.

On the one hand, I respect the effort to tell this kind of interlocked story. On the other hand, it's hard to appreciate that story when the ball is dropped so casually. The production is commendable, however, and the general aesthetics are decent as well. Also, the notion of each story leading to the next in a loop is a creative idea despite the failure of execution. If only more attention were put into fine-tuning the stories this could have been significantly better. Furthermore, the point to everything and the plot details should not be this vague. As I've mentioned numerous times, you don't need to handhold, but audiences need at least adequate information to work with. If you don't care as a filmmaker then you enter pretentious-territory or you're a lazy writer. Overall, this is maybe worth a view if you're slightly interested, but keep your expectations on the low end.

Notable Moment: During "The Accident" segment when the skank's broken leg tears practically off. That was painful to imagine. Poor skank!

Final Rating: 5.5/10