Roadside

ROADSIDE is a cheapjack horror/thriller combo about a couple who go out driving one night and end up being stranded in their car by a sniper lurking in the woods. It's a low budget suspense movie that clearly wants to be the next PHONE BOOTH, but the single location set-up of the thing is all it has going for it.

Instead this is a boring film filled with unlikeable characters and overwrought acting. Nothing much happens for long stretches and attempts at suspense fall flat over and over again. It doesn't help that you don't give a fig for the characters supposedly in peril while the villain of the piece is equally dull and yawnsome. Lots of shooting-in-the-dark cinematography follows, leaving viewers to squint their eyes and wonder why they're still watching until the final, predictable scene unfolds.

This movie was decent at the beginning but completely dropped off during the first 20 minutes or so. There was no character development of either the main characters or the antagonist. The ending was completely predictable and way too stupid.

Don't waste your time.

This movie started off well but lost itself partway through, resulting in a movie that I had to force myself to finish.

I had no empathy for the characters and honestly neither of them had redeeming qualities that made me even care whether they survived or not. The story itself seemed to be really dragged out by the writers.

The "bad guy" delivered his lines in such a way as it came of quite cheesy and then when the ending finally made an appearance I was left shaking my head wondering in what universe that even made any sense.

I'm giving this movie such a low score simply because the majority of it was a struggle to finish and left me really disappointed after such a strong start. This is a movie I would urge other people to avoid.

This one makes no sense whatsoever. And they gave it a holiday theme! Like this'll go down with all the Christmas greats. Puh-leez.

A couple is driving down the road, and find a tree blocking their way. Husband gets out to move it, and a gunman in the woods starts talking to him, and holds he and his wife hostage. In the middle of nowhere. Why? Good question. This is never revealed! Gunman says it's not about money, and he has personal information on them. Why? This is never revealed! Literally, psycho gunman holds two people hostage in the woods for absolutely no reason. Won't let the woman move an inch in the car, but periodically allows the two of them to conspire. Baffling!

They throw in 3 twists. Every one of these you can see coming from 20 miles down that gravel road. Not an ounce of originality, unless you find a lone gunman holding two people hostage on a roadside original.

I honestly can't think of a bigger waste of 81 minutes.

Another disappointing movie. There was just no passion or love behind this paint-by-the-numbers thriller. The production values were good, and the night shots looked well for a low-budget movie. The actors were competent, and I guess they did all they could with the script. But the story was so unimaginative. It's hard to believe there aren't more interesting scripts floating around Hollywood out there than this. There was just nothing to it, and the ending was predictable, lazy, and disappointing. Why go through all the trouble of making a movie when you have nothing to say?

Skip this one.