Review: Great Buildup, No Payoff
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 1, 2011
This was actually a pretty well written little story, but something about it almost has the ring of self-insertionist fan-fiction. It has a great premise; a man is woken in the middle of the night by a strange sound in his house, flees thinking there's an intruder, and receives a call on his cellphone claiming he has less than two hours to destroy a bridge on his property (a bridge that goes nowhere and sits over solid ground) before... something... happens. Unfortunately, the complete lack of any sort of explanation combined with the way the latter half turns into one big ridiculous chase/over-the-top silly "action movie" sequence complete with disappointing non-ending really cheapens what was an otherwise excellent premise with an interesting protagonist. There needed to be greater buildup, less heavy weaponry and explosions, and more tension beyond "this is a bridge, it's kind of making this guy feel weird, which is creepy, I guess". I sort of felt it would have been better without the generic monsters, too. Has tons of potential and the author definitely has talent, but Over the Bridge doesn't quite transport you to anything approaching fear just yet.