Wind Chill Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Two college kids, heading home for Christmas break, become stranded along a haunted road.

Review: This isn't a full-blown Christmas movie per se, but it'll do the trick for this time of year. And, similarly to "Krampus," you will want to huddle under the blankets while watching. Now, I do like this movie, however, the criticisms laid against "Wind Chill" are more than fair. More specifically, the pacing is slow, the action is light, and, realistically, they had enough material for a half hour TV show. What does redeem the film is the brilliantly, snowy scenery combined with an engaging mystery as to what is happening. Does the story deliver on that mystery? Eh...debatable but not really. At the same time, there is a, somewhat, charming romance subplot between the two leads; though it annoys me to no end that neither character was named! Why do movies keep doing that?

The general premise is intriguing as we follow the girl--we will call her Emily--as she attempts to find a ride home for Christmas break. The film covers why she would willingly travel with a stranger, and college kids notoriously do stupid things to be cheap. Anyway, the guy giving the ride--we'll call him Ashton--is presented as an obvious red herring. In fact, I'm not entirely sure where they were going with this character at the beginning since it was as clear as day to any viewer he isn't going to be evil or anything. Sure, he's a bit of a stalker, but he explains his tactics in film and it makes sense from a dweebie, college kid's perspective. Surprise, Emily is the girl of his dreams (or whatever), and he just wanted some alone time with her so he arranged to be her ride. Since the emphasis of the story is about ghosts, much of this comes off as filler to stretch out the ideas surrounding this haunted road. This leads me to the actual main antagonist, a ghostly cop who tends to kill passengers every holiday season on this particular stretch of road he patrolled when alive. So the gist of the plot revolves around the two college kids trying not to freeze to death once they've crashed on this road. Likewise, the ghostly cop attempts to add them to his list of victims yet can't seal the deal for whatever reason. There is plenty of tension throughout, and, as I mentioned, that frigid imagery is powerful stuff. I kind of liked the romance building between the two as they struggled not to freeze, and I appreciate the general mood and atmosphere presented. Unfortunately, the pacing begins to drag with little happening for massive periods. Many scenes that could have been intense falter instead. By the end, the resolution to these events felt lackluster as Ashton simply dies, his ghost saves Emily, and that's only after a bit of last minute shenanigans. The Christmas element does add a little spice, however, it's greatly underutilized when it could have played a larger role.

Overall, "Wind Chill" is more of a mixed bag with quality production value. You have a bunch of great ideas and an original premise to set you off, but the follow through just isn't there. Events start off creepily enough yet that initial intrigue dissipates all too quickly as if a second writer finished the script or something. Either they should have condensed the story down to be a short (or anthology segment) or plot elements like the romance or cop's backstory should have been greatly expanded upon to fill out the slow parts. Instead, we get a lot of scenes where the characters suddenly gain second, third, fourth, infinite winds of energy to do things when they're seemingly dying only seconds prior. I do still recommend checking this out since the story is incredibly offbeat, but it doesn't completely embrace the holiday horror aspect you might want at this time of year.

Notable Moment: When eel-man pops up. Who, or what, the fuck was that supposed to be?

Final Rating: 6/10