Main cast: Jack Kane (Nolan), Zanda Emlano (Karl), Zak Sutcliffe (Reggie), Sophie Jane Oliver (Bess), Molly Dew (Queenie), Terence Anderson (Joseph), David Keyes (Pedro Minghella), Mino Caprio (Giulio Sarpi), Teo Achille Caprio (Young Giulio Sarpi), and Andrei Claude (Chris)
Director: Alessio Liguori
A bunch of kids, composed of every flavor of stereotypes, are in a bus, on a field trip along with the driver Joseph. I’m not sure what kind of field trip this is, because there are no other adults aside from the bus driver, but who knows. A part of me wishes that the twist is that these kids and the driver are part of some cannibal cult and that they had disposed of all the other adults, but sadly, this movie is far more straightforward than that.
So, we have the usual stereotypes: the lead teen that has a crush on the hot gal, and that’s pretty much it for the personalities of these two characters, along with the fat clown, the nerd gal, the sensitive one, and the rebel. Oh, and don’t forgive the black bus driver!
A trail of obstacles blocks the road that the bus is supposed to take, so Joseph ends up taking a Shortcut. Along the way, the bus gets kidnapped by escaped convict Pedro Minghella. However, the trail eventually leads them to this tunnel, where the bus inexplicably breaks down, and ooh, it turns out that Pedro is just a chump compared to the real threat that is lurking in the darkness outside…
The whole thing feels very much like Jeepers Creepers turned into a Goosebumps thing, and it sort of works, in a hammy and clichéd way. Of course, everyone does as many stupid things as they could to put themselves in danger, and the whole thing ends with the kids talking about how they have discovered courage from the whole experience. That’s nice, murderous monsters and creepy criminals come together to make the most touching coming of age story.
Well, this one definitely has the folk horror vibes. The ambience is creepy for its obviously not-that-high budget and the lore of the monster is pretty well fleshed out and intriguing. However, these also feel very, very “Where have I watched these before, many times already?” and hence nothing really stands out as a result.
It doesn’t help that the kids are all bland and act more like plot ciphers than organic characters—they can’t all stay together and pee in the same place when they know there is a hungry monster out, of course, they have to get separated because peeing privately is the main priority in such a situation—and most of the decisions made by both adults and teens are clearly designed to put them all in some dangerous situations for the sake of drama and tension.
In the end, I feel that this movie may have been more interesting had it been just these kids against Pedro. The monster angle is intriguing and the whole thing is still watchable if one has nothing better to spend time on. It’s just that the movie is also so uninspired and unimaginatively put together that it ends up being a rather ho-hum forgettable monster watch.
