Hush (2009/I)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Mark Tonderai

Writer:

Mark Tonderai (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 March 2009 (UK)

Genre:

Thriller

Plot:

A young couple on a motorway journey are drawn into a game of cat and mouse with a truck driver following a near accident.

Plot Keywords:

Truck | Suspense | Sensor Beam | Mysterious Truck | Stabbed In The Eye

Cast

William Ash	...	Zakes Abbot
Christine Bottomley	...	Beth
Andreas Wisniewski	...	The Tarman
Claire Keelan	...	Wendy
Stuart McQuarrie	...	Thorpe
Robbie Gee	...	Chimponda
Peter Wyatt	...	Mr. Coates
Sheila Reid	...	Mrs. Coates
Shaun Dingwall	...	PC Mitchall
Rupert Procter	...	Dad (as Rupert Proctor)
Carol Allen	...	Mum
Harry Mondryk	...	Dash
Tobias Adams-Heighway	...	Drummer Boy
Dasiy Mondryk	...	Girl
Allison Saxton	...	Woman in Loo

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:15 | Ireland:16

Filming Locations:

Yorkshire, England, UK

Company:

Warp X

Goofs:

Continuity: When Zakes is looking for Beth in the service area, he crawls under a lorry in the lorry park in the pouring rain, in the next scene inside the service area, he appears clean and dry, surely he would be covered in oily marks.

Duel meets Wolf Creek

Having been one of the lucky ones to have spent considerable time on UK motorways at night (and specifically the M1) I was immediately intrigued by the locale for this debut horror from Mark Tonderai. For me the originality of setting alone sets this horror apart from the countless tired horror locations: the haunted house, the woods, the abandoned hospital, etc, etc.

Overall the film is a fairly nuts-and-bolts by-the-numbers horror, which deserves credit for the originality of locale, decent performances, slick direction, with a few genuinely tense set-pieces (particularly the final showdown set-piece, which stands clearly above the rest). However, it is fairly unambitious with character detail (after the opening argument), and there are a few of the usual (and easily avoidable) horror clichés - we even get the hiding in the toilet cubicle sequence (albeit with a slight variation).

You get the sense that Tonderai had his set-up and finale worked out fairly early on but didn't know what to do with the story in between. The central third, while featuring a few decent scenes with the police, takes a couple of left turns into co-conspirator territory, alluding to a networked operation. The scenes with the security guards and the 'escaped' girl feel like they were put in to fill time and up the body count rather than deepen the story as a whole. Personally I felt that a more stripped-down lone bad-guy approach would have been strong enough.

The film owes something to Spielberg's 'Duel' in theme and narrative drive (no pun intended), and there are similarities in tone to the marginally superior Australian horror 'Wolf Creek'