Hush (2008)

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

Director:

Mark Tonderai

Writer:

Mark Tonderai

Stars:

William Ash, Christine Bottomley, Andreas Wisniewski

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
William Ash	...	Zakes Abbot (as Will Ash)
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

Storyline

Tired and irritable, Zakes Abbott drives home along the motorway, his girlfriend, Beth, asleep beside him. Failing to spot his exit he speeds across the causeway, cutting up a white van and barely avoiding an accident. Apoplectic with rage, the truck driver gives chase, and as he violently overtakes the tailgate flips up revealing a woman bound and bloodied in the back. But before there is time for a second look, the door is slammed shut and Zakes is left bewildered and wondering if what he saw was real. Later at a service station, Zakes' fears grow when Beth goes missing, and as he begins a frantic search, he is enticed into a deadly game of cat and mouse on the deserted motorway. But being the sole witness to the earlier scene, how does he convince others of his desperate need for help? Playing on our most primal fears, this taut suspense thriller challenges a world where we constantly turn responsibility over to someone else and asks the question: what do you do when there is no ...

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Plot Keywords:

serial murder | woman in jeopardy | murder | falling downhill | truck | 

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Taglines:

Only you saw it. Only you can save them

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 March 2009 (UK)

Also Known As:

Csitt!

Filming Locations:

Yorkshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

GBP1,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$288,667

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film4, Warp X, UK Film Council

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

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.

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Quotes

Zakes Abbot: [goading the Tar-man outside] Remember me you CUNT!

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Crazy Credits

After the coda, credits start appearing. After the producer credits, an epilogue is shown, of one of the criminals (obviously uncaught) shopping at a bookstore, and picking up a book by the protagonist describing the criminal operation and its end. We then see him getting into one of storage trucks like the one seen earlier in film and drive way from a series of similar looking vehicles.

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Connections

Featured in House at the End of the Street (2012)

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Soundtracks

Knock Down
(K Gee Heat Remix)
Written by Alesha Dixon
Performed by Alesha Dixon
Published by Universal Music Publishing Ltd, Warner/Chappell Music Ltd and Xenomania Songs Ltd
Courtesy of Polydor Ltd
Under licence from Universal Music Operations

User Reviews

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'