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.
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.