Penny Deerborn(Rachel Miner, in a great performance)suffers from a deep, penetrating fear of cars stemming from a devastating wreck which took the lives of her parents. To tackle this fear head on, her therapist Orianna(Mimi Rogers)wishes to take Penny to the location of which the wreck occurred. But, along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker who is actually an escaped lunatic who murdered several people at a diner. Releasing the hitcher at a closed campsite for the winter, Orianna wishes to get the hell out of dodge, but her tire is torn by a large pin..the hitcher has them where he/she wants them. With it getting colder and colder and a storm a brewing, Orianna walks away from the car hoping to get a signal on her cell phone, but the hitcher has other plans. Penny suffered a twisted ankle when Orianna was teaching her a lesson(Penny would not return to the car so Orianna pretended to leave her which had the frightened young phobic running for it with the end result being a twisted ankle)and when trying to get away from the killer hits her head on a stone. Awakening inside her car, Penny finds the recording of Orianna's murder on a camcorder in her lap and even worse the car pinned between large trees with no escape route possible! So Penny is at the mercy of a psychopath bent on toying with her inner fear of cars. There are various characters in the flick merely fodder for the hitcher to sneak up behind with his/her knife such as two camp groundskeepers pulling night shift duty, Eddie(Mickey Jones)and Alvin(Chad Todhunter). Also, Alvin's adulterous lover, Mary(Tammy Filor)is another addition to the hitcher's death list.
Cliché ridden horror flick is surprisingly intense thanks to the effective multiple dilemmas facing our heroine Penny. Miner's virtuoso performance as the tormented Penny helps anchor this exercise somewhat. Having Mimi Rogers' corpse in the car with Penny ratchets up the macabre situation not to mention the blood scattered all over the car windows bringing a vibrant color red splashed on Miner's face as she constantly looks for the appearance of her captor or possible help from somebody outside. The knowledge of a sicko killer somewhere out of the car as we watch poor Penny inside adds dimension to the thriller. But, when we are introduced to the killer in all his/her glory..the screeching, hammy, over-the-top villainy is laughable instead of frightening and ruins the sharp build-up of suspense from director Richard Brandes. And, the cliché-ridden script is also hard to overcome considering this is still a hitch-hiker psycho-thriller that has been done before. This flick's damn lucky Miner is as good as she is and that her mental plight is so interesting because it almost makes this little creeper a success. I will say Brandes is quite talented with a keen ability to squeeze every bit of tension out of this rather-predictable flick. It's also quite attractive visually..good production values, it's most certainly a good-looking film even if it's rather derivative. Horror icon Michael Berryman has a cameo as a Gas Station Attendant.
Cliché ridden horror flick is surprisingly intense thanks to the effective multiple dilemmas facing our heroine Penny. Miner's virtuoso performance as the tormented Penny helps anchor this exercise somewhat. Having Mimi Rogers' corpse in the car with Penny ratchets up the macabre situation not to mention the blood scattered all over the car windows bringing a vibrant color red splashed on Miner's face as she constantly looks for the appearance of her captor or possible help from somebody outside. The knowledge of a sicko killer somewhere out of the car as we watch poor Penny inside adds dimension to the thriller. But, when we are introduced to the killer in all his/her glory..the screeching, hammy, over-the-top villainy is laughable instead of frightening and ruins the sharp build-up of suspense from director Richard Brandes. And, the cliché-ridden script is also hard to overcome considering this is still a hitch-hiker psycho-thriller that has been done before. This flick's damn lucky Miner is as good as she is and that her mental plight is so interesting because it almost makes this little creeper a success. I will say Brandes is quite talented with a keen ability to squeeze every bit of tension out of this rather-predictable flick. It's also quite attractive visually..good production values, it's most certainly a good-looking film even if it's rather derivative. Horror icon Michael Berryman has a cameo as a Gas Station Attendant.