Shuttle: Review
Reviewed by Tex Massacre (Bloody Disgusting)
Have you ever wandered into a supermarket late at night—no one else around—the soft ozone glow of the florescent lights above? Have you ever stepped out onto a subway platform, when no other living soul surrounds you—save the scurrying of rats in some time-forgotten subterranean cavern? Ever been the last poor soul at the airport—its haunting halls echo with an emptiness as vast as the Grand Canyon? These moments are all inherently creepy—like a land that time forgot. I’ve been in all of these places in my life and I can tell you that they are the places where monsters of the mind dwell. SHUTTLE would appear on the surface to be a horror film about the conveyances that safely take you away from these nightmare worlds. But, when you scratch beneath that simple set-up, what you wind up with is so much more.
Mel and Jules (Peyton List and Cameron Goodman) are just returning home from a Mexican vacation—one last single fling for the best friends as Mel is engaged to be married. It seems Mel is not a strong traveler and motion sickness is getting the best of her. When the airline loses Mel’s luggage the pair are stuck at the concourse with a set of guys that are hanging around trying to pick up them up—assuming of course that girls who spend their vacations at Carlos and Charlie’s are naturally sluts. When the airline informs Mel that the last flight has arrived sans her luggage, the foursome give up and head off, looking for some transportation home. The girls decide to take one shuttle over another because the driver (UNDERWORLD’S Tony Curran) offers them the ride at half the price—the guys tag along. What they don’t know is that when their feet cross the threshold of this shuttle, the gang is in for the most terrifying ride of their very short lives.
SHUTTLE is an intense film experience. It’s furious in its pacing and relentless in its action as the passengers are taken on a bus ride to hell. What makes SHUTTLE all the more impressive is that this ride has a design. This descent into unadulterated terror is a methodically executed means to an end, but not without shocking surprise to Curran’s menacing character of the Driver. And, both the film and the Driver are aiming to move their passengers at breakneck speed toward the shattering conclusion.
The performances from the cast are all around top notch, with Peyton List taking the lead role and facilitating a solid characterization past a few minor plot contrivances. Cameron Goodman is effective as the best friend in a role that was not entirely sympathetic and could have easily been little more than eye candy. She is especially successful when forced into a near catatonic state by the horrors of the night. Tony Curran who was successfully menacing in UNDERWORLD plays The Driver with a great deal more restraint than one would expect from a vicious killer. It’s a disciplined performance and one that serves the film well.
While gorehounds might not be doing back flips over the blood loss they should appreciate that Director Edward Anderson makes the kills relatively painful and wholly grounded in reality. In fact, despite some minor genre conventions (which frankly all genre films have and need) SHUTTLE could and perhaps has happened. A lot of slasher films and torture films claim to be “ripped from the headlines” but never feel as immediate and realistic as moments in SHUTTLE and that makes the film in all its pulse pounding pacing much more interesting.
In the end, SHUTTLE delivers one of the most compelling denouements of any genre film I’ve seen in the past year. It’s tragic and brutal and for eagle-eyed fans it is satisfying in that the film hints and pokes and prods the audience toward the conclusion. The ending never feels tacked on; it’s organic and completely accurate for the story. I don’t think genre fans can ask for more than that when they sit down in a darkened theater, board the SHUTTLE, and demand to be transported into a terrifying new world.
Score: 8 / 10
Have you ever wandered into a supermarket late at night—no one else around—the soft ozone glow of the florescent lights above? Have you ever stepped out onto a subway platform, when no other living soul surrounds you—save the scurrying of rats in some time-forgotten subterranean cavern? Ever been the last poor soul at the airport—its haunting halls echo with an emptiness as vast as the Grand Canyon? These moments are all inherently creepy—like a land that time forgot. I’ve been in all of these places in my life and I can tell you that they are the places where monsters of the mind dwell. SHUTTLE would appear on the surface to be a horror film about the conveyances that safely take you away from these nightmare worlds. But, when you scratch beneath that simple set-up, what you wind up with is so much more.
Mel and Jules (Peyton List and Cameron Goodman) are just returning home from a Mexican vacation—one last single fling for the best friends as Mel is engaged to be married. It seems Mel is not a strong traveler and motion sickness is getting the best of her. When the airline loses Mel’s luggage the pair are stuck at the concourse with a set of guys that are hanging around trying to pick up them up—assuming of course that girls who spend their vacations at Carlos and Charlie’s are naturally sluts. When the airline informs Mel that the last flight has arrived sans her luggage, the foursome give up and head off, looking for some transportation home. The girls decide to take one shuttle over another because the driver (UNDERWORLD’S Tony Curran) offers them the ride at half the price—the guys tag along. What they don’t know is that when their feet cross the threshold of this shuttle, the gang is in for the most terrifying ride of their very short lives.
SHUTTLE is an intense film experience. It’s furious in its pacing and relentless in its action as the passengers are taken on a bus ride to hell. What makes SHUTTLE all the more impressive is that this ride has a design. This descent into unadulterated terror is a methodically executed means to an end, but not without shocking surprise to Curran’s menacing character of the Driver. And, both the film and the Driver are aiming to move their passengers at breakneck speed toward the shattering conclusion.
The performances from the cast are all around top notch, with Peyton List taking the lead role and facilitating a solid characterization past a few minor plot contrivances. Cameron Goodman is effective as the best friend in a role that was not entirely sympathetic and could have easily been little more than eye candy. She is especially successful when forced into a near catatonic state by the horrors of the night. Tony Curran who was successfully menacing in UNDERWORLD plays The Driver with a great deal more restraint than one would expect from a vicious killer. It’s a disciplined performance and one that serves the film well.
While gorehounds might not be doing back flips over the blood loss they should appreciate that Director Edward Anderson makes the kills relatively painful and wholly grounded in reality. In fact, despite some minor genre conventions (which frankly all genre films have and need) SHUTTLE could and perhaps has happened. A lot of slasher films and torture films claim to be “ripped from the headlines” but never feel as immediate and realistic as moments in SHUTTLE and that makes the film in all its pulse pounding pacing much more interesting.
In the end, SHUTTLE delivers one of the most compelling denouements of any genre film I’ve seen in the past year. It’s tragic and brutal and for eagle-eyed fans it is satisfying in that the film hints and pokes and prods the audience toward the conclusion. The ending never feels tacked on; it’s organic and completely accurate for the story. I don’t think genre fans can ask for more than that when they sit down in a darkened theater, board the SHUTTLE, and demand to be transported into a terrifying new world.
Score: 8 / 10
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