Directed by Gregory Jacobs, 2007
Written by Joe Gangemi & Steven Katz

It has been so long since I’ve reviewed anything, I, for a second, forgot how to format these things.  One may have grown to expect the return would bring in hand an extraordinary, hidden horror elixir.  One is now disappointed.  Congratulations!  We have something in common!

WIND CHILL is on the straight and narrow towards Alright-Alright’ington.  Not bad, not good.  A well enough place to hang your hat is all I’m saying.

However, WIND CHILL does intrigue me in a department most strictly satisfactory films do not.  George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh have their names on the film via their Section Eight production house AND Clint Mansell did the score.  I’d like to know whether their outfit was looking to make a quick and clean grab for some of thems horrors moneyies, or the impressive collective of Cloonney, Soderbergh et all wound up with Joe Gangemi and Steven Katz’s script and were legitimately blown away.

I have this funny – and to me it is funny – feeling that it is a bit of both, that Section Eight wanted to stir some cash and were wow’ed by the script.  That would go to show 1) how outside of the genre they are, that there exists a handful of films with this same stuck-on-a-road-to-nowhere hook in the last three years alone and 2) that not one of the millionaires looking to get in the game ever walked the horror isles of their local video store or Best Buy.  Not that I blame them, just amusing to me that Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, men who have reached the recent heights of their careers by taking risks, dipped their hand into such a safe bet.

To its credit, WIND CHILL sports a few uncommon elements for a movie about people stuck on a road after swerving into a snow drift in order to avoid a phantom car.  First off, Emily Blunt’s character is a bit of a bitch.  A script can score easy points with me by centering on a protag you wouldn’t mind drowning right off the bat.  In this, Emily Blunt (no character names, by the way) starts as a real pain in the ass Daddy’s girl and then guides her down believable development  Second, the guy who brings her along, Ashton Holmes, isn’t all that enjoyable himself.  So you’ve got a movie that draws the viewer along despite the fact that it intentionally boasts two uninteresting persons at its core.

I’m a fan of the road-to-nowhere film, so I may be giving more of a pass to WIND CHILL than most would.  It doesn’t matter to me that I knew the script’s grist just from reading the vague plot description.  I’m a forgiving guy.  This is a horror movie that could easily be suggested to those who do not watch horror movies.  Especially if said Those are female as Emily Blunt anchors the entire picture from drifting too far from unrelatability.  It has its share of soft, subtle freak out moments in addition to a cozy sense of dread.

For those who do watch a lot of horror movies, it would be easy to say skip WIND CHILL.  There are a lot of movies out there and certainly plenty more deserving of your 100 minutes.  Thus is the unfortunate residence of Gregory Jacobs’ film, a film late to an already crowded neighborhood.  Sure, it has character draw to it, plays under unique circumstances and my time spent with it passed painlessly, but I also had seen WIND CHILL three times before I ever even pressed play.

Shrug.

Tags: Emily Blunt, WIND CHILL