Wind Chill (2007)
Review by Noel
George Clooney made me see this movie.
Well, he and Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh made me see it…
Because if I didn’t see their names with the Section 8 banner I would have skipped this over to collect dust on my video shelves or left it frozen (cold reference!!) on my Netflix Queue.
Which would have been my loss.
As the heads of Section 8, Clooney’s and Soderbergh’s production company have executive produced some the best off-center entertainment in the past 5 years (Insomnia, Far From Heaven, The Jacket), and Wind Chill represents Section 8’s first foray into the horror genre…
Because even if this movie had sucked…it would have sucked interestingly…
To Summarize:
A-college-student-goes-ride-sharing-for-Christmas-with-a-guy-that-may-or-may-not-be-a-freaky-stalker-and-then-they-avoid-an-accident-and-run-into-a-snowdrift…
And then the freaky shit happens…
What works about Wind Chill:
1) Smoke her last name – Emily Blunt, soooo good in supporting parts in My Summer of Love and The Devil Wears Prada, now gets to carry a movie on her own. And she does. Her character’s purposely icy (!!) but as the movie goes on…she thaws. It’s amazing how by-degrees believable she is, considering what her character has to go through (she actually doesn’t act like she’s seen countless horror films). And, she has a passable American accent.
2) The relationship between Emily Blunt and co-star Ashton Holmes is actually quite sweet, considering it’s a horror movie.
3) Snake got your tongue?
4) There are creepy priests…but not for reasons you might think.
5) Martin Donovan plays a cop that you don’t {INSERT CREEPY COP PHRASE HERE eg. “want to be pulled over by”…or “get a ticket from”}. There’s something about that wonderfully ordinary still face that screams…complete fucking psycho.
6) Apparently, the Valleys have Eyes too- like last March’s Hills Have Eyes 2, weird shit happens when a girl goes outside to pee. If there’s some kind of deeper social commentary there…I don’t want to know.
7) The shaking car- the windows make this sequence completely unnerving.
I like that you never get to know the names of the characters. I was so engrossed with the story that I was never really aware of that until the credits rolled. Of course, by saying that…I just ruined it for you. Sorry.
What doesn’t work:
1) In retrospect, what the hell was the point of that bathroom scene?
2) A newspaper located to show…all the backstory the viewer needs to know. How convenient.
3) Soon to get old – watching people text each other onscreen (The Departed, Disturbia). Yawn…
4) There should be a rule – No more using the “It was all a dream” twist, except for crappy soap operas.
5) For better or worse…there’s no gore in this movie.
6) Wind Chill – what a crappy title, but at least it wasn’t called “Out in the Cold” or “Flaccid Dicks and Pointy Nipples” or “Chill Factor”
So go ahead, rent Wind Chill because I think you’ll like it more than you think you will. You’ll warm up to it.
But if you don’t…you can always blame George Clooney.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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