Slightly-better-than-it-should be tale of a mother and daughter breaking down on a lonely road and stalked by a monster. There's nothing here the experienced horror fan hasn't seen before—yet, for an assemblage of vaguely familiar horror tropes, it's a skillful assemblage, and the direction makes it stand out beyond what it might have been. Not a great movie by a long shot, but much better than it should be, but it's got a touch slower pacing and a few more character-driven elements than a b-grade horror movie usually does, both always a plus to me. And, pleasantly, it gets better as it goes along—the third act reflects back positively on the first two, as it goes for a slightly more quiet, thoughtful climax than the loud one many other movies of this sort would have gone for, even if it still never strays far from genre cliches.
And even before the buildup, probably enough creepy atmosphere and jump scares to qualify it as a halfway decent date movie.
The acting is decent as well, especially from the daughter, in a role calling for just a little more emotional depth and realism than you'd normally expect from the role of the preteen kid being terrorized by a monster in a horror movie.
It's, uh, hmmmm. It's a consistent B-minus, maybe a B, all the way through, with material most directors couldn't have made anywhere near such high marks out of.
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