DVD Artwork
This Australian movie first came to my attention under its original title Road Train which, in my opinion, was a far superior title. No doubt it was changed in order to dumb it down to appeal to an audience who couldn’t possibly comprehend what a road train actually is. Who knows? Regardless of the title change Road Kill was picked up by Fangoria for its Fright Fest imprint which at least meant that we would all get to see it at some point. Whether that is a good thing or not would remain to be seen.
The movie starts off promisingly enough with four friends out on a camping trip in the Outback (no not the restaurant). They are having a grand old time which only gets better when they spy a road train closing in behind them. For those that don’t know a road train is a behemoth of a truck that is towing not one but two, or possibly more, trailers behind it, making it look like a …. Yeah, you got it. Anyway, said road train shows no intention of slowing down or even passing the happy campers and soon runs them off the road.
None too impressed with this the kids notice that the truck has pulled over a fair way down the road and decide to confront the driver. It’s never that simple though is it? Of course the driver isn’t there when they get to the truck.
Now, I could go on with what happens during the movie but truth be known it would give far too much away. That might not be such a bad thing though as this is a strange meandering beast of a movie. What could have been a modern day take on movies such as Duel or Road Games instead turns out to be a more supernatural mess. We get Hellish imagery flashed on the screen which hints at what is going on but never really tells us. This isn’t always a bad thing except when events are just a little too vague to make much sense.
The taglines for the movie do basically give us all the information we need though, without really having to sit through this movie. It’s a shame as I had high hopes for this, and like I said it does start off promisingly enough. It’s just there didn’t seem to be any flow to events. One minute it looks like a gritty survival horror and then we are treated to scenes that would be more at home in a schlocky B movie, and then there are the scenes that flash onto the screen that really fit into neither.
On the plus side there are some decent crash scenes and a fair bit of claret plus the score is fairly effective. In fact on a technical level Road Kill is a well made movie and it looks great. There’s also a couple of decent performances to be found in the cast of five, although these get wasted with a weak script that forces them to do some really dumb things.
The worst sin committed by Road Kill though is the fact that there is no real tension created, it is just not even vaguely scary. What we get left with is a messy movie that will leaving you scratching your head and searching for the next movie to take your mind off this one.
