Alone

This movie is just really hard to watch. A girl that just had a scary encounter and stops alone, far away from her car at a shady trucker pitstop. And this is not even one of the things that annoyed me during the movie. None of the characters make any sense at all how they behave. Besides how can you keep meeting the guy all over the woods? Just nonsense!

A recently widowed woman is travelling across America when she finds herself repeatedly bumping into a mysterious man. However, it soon transpires that these meetings are not coincidental and the woman (Jessica) ends up being kidnapped and held hostage by this man. Jessica manages to escape, but this merely becomes the start of her problems...

With Alone what you effectively have is a good old-fashioned cat-and-mouse thriller and despite it, narratively, treading a fairly well-worn path it is quite effective at what it does...

Plus points with the film lie with the protagonist who is smart and confident giving us a strong persona to root for (the fact that she doesn't trust 'the man' right from the start was also refreshing to see from a narrative standpoint). Her bravery and resourcefulness make her a worthy opponent for the antagonist and one senses that he actually has some respect for her as the film progresses. There is also some tense moments (more so in the middle of the picture when the man is hunting Jessica). Of course, some suspension of disbelief is required to accept what you see here when Jessica is out in the open and is being pursued (one scene involving a tree trunk blocking a road is one such example), but for the most part it works and compared to similar films within the genre Alone does seem to be fairly grounded.

For the most part this film belongs to 2 actors; Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca and both do commendable jobs. The latter was already halfway there with the way he looked in the film, but he backed this up with a creepy performance as well.

Alone doesn't really have many surprises nor does it offer much that hasn't been seen before, but it does at least have a protagonist who isn't quite as cliched as many that have gone before her and there are plenty of tense moments in this minimalist thriller that mostly succeeds.

Everything in this movie has been done umpteenth no of times but the fact that inspite of this the movie managed to create ample amount of suspense n tension throughout.

The guy who played the stalker indeed looked n behaved very creepy.

The lead actress gave a decent performance.

This movie reminded me of Hush (2016) n other low budget 90s thrillers.

Good to see Anthony Heald aft a long time.

I spent most of the movie saying: Why would she do that?

Why didn't she tell anyone?

Girl...don't say that! Don't tell him that!

I wanna root for her but at this rate..nah.

Maybe my mom taught me how to travel safely as a young lady...and this girl just didn't know. But I hope everyone watching learned WHAT NOT TO DO! Ahhhhhhhh!

Ok. Aside from that, Not the worst thriller I've watched this summer. I'm just still SO MAD AT THIS CHARACTER, it was hard to enjoy the movie being so upset with her choices.

This is a pretty good film if you just sit back and watch; suspend your disbelief. Don't think too much about it and you'll have a good time. It's entertaining, tense, and will keep you at the edge of your seat. The acting is good and the escape scenes are genuinely unsettling and thrilling. Jules Willcox is really good here as Jessica, and without her this film wouldn't work. Marc Menchaca is pretty scary and menacing as the bad guy inexplicably stalking Jessica throughout the film. The final standoff scene between Jessica and Sam is simultaneously really cool, cathartic, and rewarding.

Many reviewers state how the main character, Jessica, makes multiple dumb decisions. What these reviewers fail to realize is that when very scared, anxious, and alone, people tend to have decision-making that's not very good. And that's what the film is trying to get at here.

Highly recommend, especially if you enjoy cat-and-mouse thrillers.