Fender Bender

In a small New Mexico town, a 17-year-old high school girl (Makenzie Vega) who just got her driver's license gets into her first fender bender, innocently exchanging her personal information with an apologetic stranger (Bill Sage).

When listing off the so-called masters of horror, the name Mark Pavia does not typically come up. But Pavia did make a great horror film -- "The Night Flier" -- and has finally returned to the director's chair for "Fender Bender". Where were you, Mark? We missed you! This time, in cooperation with Scream! Factory and Chiller, Pavia takes on the slasher film. This is his baby, through and through: he wrote the script based on his original idea, he directs and he helped produce. And what we get is a pretty decent addition to the genre. Although this is more of a PG-13 horror (no nudity or cursing), it still has its share of gore and it really excels in the way it handles pacing. Cinematography Tyler Cushing lets his camera hover on various things just long enough to build suspense and keep us on edge.

The story also has a nice subplot. Although the identity of the killer is firmly established early on, a cheating boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) also plays a significant role... and leaves the audience guessing who is going to be the one showing up at the door. And who is more dangerous, a stalking killer or a drunk and emotional ex-boyfriend? While "Fender Bender" is definitely not going to be as big of a hit as "Night Flier", it is still far better than basically every made-for-TV horror and sci-fi film out there. Pavia relies on classic storytelling and shies away from cheap scares and terrible CGI. With the exception of perhaps the "Sharknado" series, SyFy has never come close to what Chiller is unveiling with this.

Welcome back, Mark Pavia. Please don't be a stranger.

After getting into a car accident, a teen finds that the driver she gave the insurance information to is a vicious serial killer intent on targeting victims in the same manner and tries to help her friends visiting her for the weekend when he shows up to finish the job.

This one here wasn't all that great of a slasher. The main issue with this one is the fact that this one just seems to go about itself so slowly that there's just a dreadful and dull pace to it. Even though there's the tell-tale accident quite early in the film, this one really ends to go on forever before it does any kind of slashing antics with it featuring the nearly endless scenes of her around the house doing nothing of any real substance during them as it just consists of variations of her complaining about her shabby treatment by her parents and simply wandering around the house trying to pass the time which is tedious, endless and just not that interesting to watch it happen. That leaves the killer with so little screen-time that he finally appears only in the final half of the film do it also really affects two other key areas in a slasher film about not having too many stalking scenes as well as having quite a low body-count featured here. This one has just a couple stalking scenes overall here as the film's taken up with so many non-slasher scenes there's not really any time for it to engage in these once we get there, and a part of that also comes from the fact that there's just such a flimsy story here to support this kind of slasher film so it's pacing is off quite significantly here with all that blandness up front as well as the extended prologue at the end showing him cleaning up his crimes that also manages to take up plenty of time here since the story is weak and the pacing off. Likewise, the dullness here also tends to make the film simply packed in the one section with kills but nothing else anywhere in the film so there's another major flaw here in the amount of kills it features featuring some of the weakest kills possible anyway. These here really troubling and lower this one significantly. When this one works it's got quite a lot of impressive stalking moments found in the later half here as the scenes of the killer going after the friends which gives this the kind of tense, impressive stalking throughout here as the immediate appearance to let them know he's there gives this a truly dynamic chase here. The darkened house is a fine setting which the stalking takes full advantage of with plenty of set-pieces within the house of him stalking the group and taking the encounters to the different rooms and locations as he goes through his paces hunting them down. That even leads into the traditional final-girl chase here which is a thrilling, action- packed set-piece that is far more interesting than anything else in the film as she pulls off a truly enjoyable fight against him and takes it to him which is what makes this a fantastic finish and really saves this one. It's just that the problems here really hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

Excellent production values and performances make this film worth the watch. The electronic music is great and the ending is original. I've seen this film a few times and could see it easily becoming a cult classic. Good, scary, and fast paced. Enjoy it.

Was this a typical,cookie cutter,plot hole filled horror flick? Yes! It wasn't horrible,but felt rather low budget in parts.

Was many times you felt(Vega)made rather stupid decisions once the killer arrives.. Trying to call police,leaving,making sure he's dead.

Overall it was cast decent & acting ok,but cinematography could of been improved some. You never get a real motive for why he kills,feel it was to basically torment females of any age & anybody in the way of his mission.

Have seen better & worse that carries this type genre,but still not a waste of a night as a popcorn flick to watch.

After reading the reviews I decided to make up my own. Yeah the killing scenes aren't very gory and you'll wonder why the girl does certain things. Overall the actors are great, the killings simple and the ending was not what I expected. Definitely worth a watch 🎬