Excellent but underrated film

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Never try to be Hitchcockian. And this goes for you, M. Night., as well. OK, even M. Night Shyamalan wouldn't have taken on this script. But, writer/director Eric England did. And he even hired a Bernard Herrmann- esque composer for this film. Shame. Despite that score also being a rip-off, it was the best part of this movie.Independent horror films can be a gem. If you can find them. Though I love watching them, I only find one really great one for every twenty I watch. Most recently, I've been binge watching several Indie-Horror movies, including this one. Of the six, only Summer Camp rose above average and was almost perfect. It's not every day you discover a: The Invitation, The Final Girls, Summer Camp or the granddaddy of them all: Halloween. Boy, do I love those days.This Wednesday…wasn't one of them.Aside from the major plot holes, were the additional WTF moments: Why would he do that? She wouldn't do that! He could do this. He didn't think of this? Let me back up. The movie involves a troubled couple on the way to spend Christmas at the male-half's family house. They get stopped on Christmas Eve in the middle of nowhere by a sniper with the least effective and hilariously bad voice telling him what he'll do if the male-half doesn't obey his wishes.Basically, the husband stays outside in the cold with the threat of being shot if he tries to reenter his vehicle while his very pregnant wife must stay inside the car…or the hidden-in-the-woods sniper will kill one or both of them.Okay, I get the concept and for a point, it's interesting. But, as it wears on, it gets predictable, problematic and annoying with the (again) man's terrible voice. It was so incredibly un-creepy and unintentionally hilarious, it was hard to feel threatened alongside our victim couple. Plus, the script even hints at the killer man's omnipotence with a subplot that, very sadly, begins and goes nowhere in seconds.Maybe this was an experimental film and w/d Eric England wanted to get his feet wet first. Not sure. But, I know he did surround himself with talent. Unfortunately for him, his future film lineup doesn't look promising. Whelp, good luck to him because this surely isn't recommended nor am I dying to dive into another of his projects.***Final thoughts: To be fair, this movie wasn't 100% terrible. There were moments of flair. But, for the love of all that's horror, listen to your gut. When you hear the mysterious man in the woods, or "the killer," and he sounds silly and nonthreatening, hire someone with a deep and scary voice and ADR the sh|t out of those scenes. Please.

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.

First: Acting—some of it was good and some pretty bad. The husband was pretty good, the wife? I've seen better high school actors. The Bad Guy was believable before we knew he was a bad guy, then he got cheesy and I winced at his evil laugh. The cop was adequate. Second: Production values were surprisingly good. Night filming is very difficult and this movie did it beautifully. Direction was pretty good as well.Now SPOILERS! The ending made no sense. It was like a Twilight Zone ending was added. There was no resolution. There was no explaining why the Bad Guy knew who Erin was. We kept thinking the bad guy must be Erin's angry husband. And why would the Bad Guy give the couple a flare gun??? It just didn't make sense. Coitus interruptus is what it was.But the WORST was that we were supposed to believe it was winter and days before Christmas and that the car might need chains on the tires, yet the trees were covered in green foliage! We never saw breath frosting from the character's mouths—nothing! And it would have been easily solved, at least the green leaves, by saying it was a freakishly early cold snap—We had a lot of snow the third weekend in October here in the Midwest. It totally detracted from the film for me and was a story element that just wasn't necessary. It would have been fine without the "cold" storyline.The thing is that I still saw lots of promise with this director and will be watching out for him in the future.

The film starts effectively enough. The problem is that it just becomes a another very standard, very predictable, only mildly entertaining horror flick. no real surprises (that ending is super cliché, people aren't going to fall for it). The acting is decent enough, but it does become grating at a certain point (although really, only because the characters themselves do and the writing starts getting worse). But I'm giving it a 5 because at no point is it actually bad, just never very good. Maybe some will find more enjoyment out of this, but for me, not a total waste of time but not a proactive time spend either. So really, depends on you if a viewing is warranted