Wind Chill

Plot synopsis:
Prior to Christmas break, a young woman Emily Blunt (listed in credits simply as "girl") accepts the idea from a cell phone texting session to use the campus "Ride Share" program as an alternative to riding the bus back home to Delaware. Finding a posting on a bulletin board, she catches a ride home from a stranger, Ashton Holmes (listed in credits simply as "guy").She arrives late to her ride, finding guy sleeping in his car, a late model sedan. As he pops the trunk of the car for her couple suitcases, his trunk is revealed to be overloaded with his personal belongings. He explains that he has just been "kicked out of my apartment." While he warms up the car, she rearranges his trunk to find room for her suitcase. To make room, she pulls out a random bag of his stuff from the trunk and as they drive away, the oversized shopping bag is seen sitting in the empty parking lot.The girl's anti-social behavior is made clear as she selfishly carries on a cell phone conversation. Finally noticing the pained look on her driver's face, she hangs up her phone. He explains to her the "rules" of ride sharing, they share half the expenses and it's her responsibility to keep up a conversation while they drive. The conversation is very stilted between mismatched pair: the anti-social, loner chick and the square Catholic High School graduate driver who is majoring philosophy. Guy reveals they shared a class together. Girl says it was a huge class and she never noticed him. Guy asks about her glasses, "Did you have Lazik surgery?" Girl is surprised that he knows about her glasses since she only wears them in her dorm room. An awkward pause is filled with the guy changing the subject.As she paints her toenails, ignoring him, they drive alone the open highway. An on screen clock shows they have been on the road for a couple of hours. She asks him to keep an eye out for a gas station, saying she needs a bathroom break. At the filling station, she doesn't want to get out of the car because the polish on her nails hasn't yet dried. He offers to carry her into the station, which, despite her protests, he does.While the guy talks to the attendant, Darren Moore, the girl finds the bathroom, which is dirty and in poor repair. After doing her business, she washes her hands only to discover the blow dryer doesn't work. After wiping her hand on her pants, she finds she cannot open the bathroom door. It is apparently locked. She begins pounding on the door for help, and though she had walked past several people in the diner section of the filling station, no one comes to help her. Eventually, she frees herself (after pulling the handle off the door). She finds the guy still chatting up the clerk behind the counter. She is furious that he didn't come to her aid. He assures her they didn't hear her cries for help, though she says she could hear them talking.As they leave the filling station, the guy verifies his directions with the clerk, as if he is lost and doesn't know where he is going. The girl calls him on it, but he assures her he is not lost. Soon after they resume their trip, he takes a side road listed as Route 606. The snow covered road is reduced to one lane and his older car slips and slides on the packed snow. Despite her protests that they immediately turn back to the freeway, he continues saying "this is a shortcut and we will be back on the freeway in no time."As night falls, an on-coming car approaches them at high speed in a game of chicken. They swerve to avoid it, colliding into a snow bank. A radio news report warns that an incoming storm will bring snow and temperatures down to 30 degrees below zero.As they fight the falling temperatures, they begin to see people outside of their car, from ghostly priests to other manifestations of lost souls. Before they understand that they are spirits, the girl tries to touch one. Her hand is burned. The spirit turns to show that he, too, is a victim of fire. Bit by bit, details come out of the guy's longing for her. How he had texted her the suggestion to use the Ride Share program and posted his number for her to find. How he took the scenic route in hopes of creating a romantic memory. It also comes out that the bag she left behind was a bag of food he had bought for their trip.They think help has arrived when a Pennsylvannia Highway Patrol Officer, Martin Donovan, knocks on their window. Oddly, he doesn't seem to understand their predicament, choosing instead to believe they were parking. Taking the girl from the car, he tries to get her into the back of his car. When it becomes clear to her that he means her harm, she struggles to get away, but cannot. The guy appears behind the officer, welding a tire iron, and beats him across the head, rescuing her. The highway patrol officer was a spirit and the most menacing one of them all.The spirits turn out to be spectors remaining who were victims of the rouge cop who would lure his victims to this deserted stretch of road and kill them, including four monks who witnessed his crimes. They learn of it from an article in a newspaper they are using for insulation against a car window. As the night progresses, during occassional fitful naps, the crimes of the rogue cop are re-enacted with the girl as part of them.As the night progresses, it is revealed that the guy has sustained greater injuries from the accident than he had let on. In a desperate attempt to get help, the girl comes up with the idea of climbing a nearby telephone pole, tapping into the line with the phone from the guy's household belongings, and calling for help. While it is unclear if she is 100% successful (she makes it to the top of the pole and does make a call to 911 that is quickly lost from otherly world interference), she does make her call and returns to the car to find her travelling companion has passed away.Defeat settles in as she tries to figure out what to do. For reasons that are not made clear, she pulls him from the car. Perhaps she is planning on dragging him to help, when a pair of headlights show up. It is a tow truck operator, Ned Bellamy, responding to her 911 call. He loads the body of her dead friend into the back of his cab and they begin driving to safety. The tow truck driver fills in the blanks about the story of how people have been dying along that particular stretch of road since the 50's when the rouge cop was killing them. But even after he was killed, the dying continued, including people inexplicably freezing to death in the cars. It's clear this girl has narrowly escaped a very close call with death when the same car that chased her and her travelling companion off the narrow road in the first place shows up again, this time driving the tow truck driver off the road, too.After the tow truck rolls and crashes, the girl and its driver are shaken up, but still alive. The tow truck driver insists on seeing about the other car's driver. At the bottom of a ravine, he sees a burning wreck. It is clearly the burning wreckage from the 50's of the rogue cop car. As the tow driver shimmies down into the ravine, the girl chases him, yelling for him to stop. The rogue cop is pinned inside his upside down car which is on fire. The priests show up, but rather than pull him from the wreckage, they pull the microphone for his radio from his car, preventing him from calling for help. The car becomes engulfed in flames.The rogue cop crawls out of the burning wreckage, attacking the stunned tow truck driver. As the spirit of the cop touches the tow truck driver, he instantly freezes. The girl scrambles away, back into the damaged tow truck, attempting to start it and failing while the spirit cop reaches her and tries to attack her. That's when the spirit of her Ride Share driver appears, once more defeating the rogue cop's spirit. The girl climbs from the car, seeing the ghost of driver standing in the woods. He apologizes and says he would have explained everything to her if they had had more time. She accepts his good intentions and then follows him through the woods. They pass through the cabin where the priests/monks once lived (and died) and various other signs of the carnage created through the years by the rogue cop until they eventually reach the service station where they had stopped hours ago for fuel and a bathroom break.Paramedics show up to treat the girl and the movie ends with her pulling up a single snapshot she took of the guy, her driver.

Tags: paranormal, suspenseful, flashback

Review:
But I thought it was fun and weird and full of unexpected depth.I'm not certain in which direction "Wind Chill" is pointing the horror movie--maybe in the direction of the late 60s/early 70s "just slightly off" horror like "Rosemary's Baby" or the old "Night Gallery" TV series--rather than in the direction of grind house horror.
It's a few days before the Christmas holidays when two (unnamed) students share a ride home.After taking a "short-cut" they have a serious accident and find themselves stranded in nowheresville', in the middle of a cold snap and miles from the nearest town, then the 'problems' really begin....I have to admit I'd heard nothing about this film, in fact I'd never even heard of the title, but it proved to be a bit of a revelation.The two leads Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) and Ashton Holmes (A History Of Violence) are both very good actors and both put in good performances.The film is well paced, not letting you know too much too soon, it's a very eerie looking movie, the the darkness of the night brilliantly contrasting with the glistening snow, reminiscent of the classic "The Shining".In an age of shock horror which has become rife in Hollywood over the past decade it nice to see a good old fashioned horror film in the fashion of say John Carpenters "The Fog" or even Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" which it had elements that were very similar too.A fine intelligent psychological horror film..
Aside from a back-story that is thrown in at the last minute which never really explains why this is happening to the characters, the film stars and director have helped create some very effective scar sequences which don't always need to be played upon with exhausting music and gore.The story begins with a girl (Emily Blunt, "The Devil Wears Prada") who needs a ride home for the holidays from college because she has just broken up with her boyfriend.
The director Jacobs ("Criminal") is fully aware that the best of horror films are those that have given you time to get to know and feel for the characters before something bad happens to them, even if it is only in the last half.
2007's "Wind Chill" is a mystery/horror film about a college gal (Emily Blunt) sharing a 6-hour ride with a male student (Ashton Holmes) home to Delaware from Pennsylvania.
The story takes a tragic ghostly turn when they get stranded on Route 606 in the bitter evening cold.I should point out right away that "Wind Chill" is inexplicably rated 'R'; there's really nothing in the film that should warrant such a rating -- there's no sex, very little cussing (realistic, not overkill) and hardly any gore.
If you want that see "Cabin Fever" or "Friday the 13th." "Wind Chill" shoots for something more profound, haunting and classy, like "The Mothman Prophecies".The film is what I would call an "isolated environment" movie wherein the main characters are stuck in a confined situation for the better part of the picture, like in "Prey" where a woman and her two stepkids are stuck in a jeep fending off lions or "The Mist" where the characters are barricaded in a supermarket from the onslaught of otherworldly creatures.
I would chalk it up to great writing, acting and movie-making.Think about it, there are essentially only two characters in this entire 91-minute film.
It dawned on me while watching that "Wind Chill" is largely a dialogue-driven picture; the banter between the two protagonists pulled me in and sustained my interest, which isn't easy seeing as how "isolated environment" movies tend to try the viewer's patience & interest by their very nature.Emily Blunt is easy on the eyes (what an understatement) but comes off a bit witchy and therefore unattractive initially, yet this plays into what the film is really about.
Who it is that needs redeemed and why I'll leave to you to figure out, as well as who pays the price.The score is awe-inspiring, in particular the piece at the beginning and end (and during the credits).Although the story takes place in the East the film was shot in British Columbia.
These are great locations, of course, but I'm starting to weary of the fact that 90% of these types of flicks are shot in B.C. Incidentally, the tale obviously occurs in Eastern Pennsylvania in light of a reference to Harrisburg on the radio and the I-476 highway sign (I-476 runs North-to-South from Scranton to Philadelphia).I have a couple of cavils: When they're stranded on the country road it never looks nearly as cold as it's supposed to be, and is it believable that any college student, let alone a hot babe, would know about the junction box and phone jack on top of a telephone pole?
CONCLUSION: The average person who has a taste for this type of moody, spooky picture will conclude that "Wind Chill" is a classy chiller, what ushers it into the realm of greatness is its underlying profundities, stellar cast, writing, acting, music, locations and just all-around magical movie-making.
Soon they are being haunted by the ghosts of all the numerous people who died earlier in the very spot that seems intent on claiming two fresh victims."Wind Chill" is a modest little horror outing whose admirable restraint and sense of atmosphere don't quite compensate for its overall lack of energy and incoherent storyline.
It takes quite awhile for the plot to kick itself into gear, and even when it does, the movie ends not with a bang but with a whimper."Wind Chill" is certainly preferable to an out-and-out gore-fest like "Saw" or "Hostel," but a few more runs through the typewriter (or word processor, as the case may be) might have gone a long way towards making it a more satisfying and scary film.
I'm so used to horror movies not being scary, probably due to being desensitized after seeing so many.Emily Blunt is a great actress and I would love to see her in more lead roles.
Wind Chill has the seeds of an extremely affecting horror film: a twilight December 23 commute home for two unacquainted college kids, who couldn't be more mismatched, a slate gray landscape full of spooky forest-and-snow strewn exteriors, Clint Mansell's doomy score, and Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes' spot-on performances.Blunt --- a literal bitch on wheels --- swipes a tag from a ride board back home to Delaware with Holmes, a nerdy Philosophy major who may be a good Samaritan, a love-sick stalker, or a psycho --- or a combination of the last two.As a suspense film, Wind Chill does work.
I've seen plenty shitty horror movies in my day, and this is definitely not one of them, and it deserves more recognition.When the plot starts unraveling, and a boy and a girl drive off the road only to be trapped in their car and the cold outside, you immediately want to judge this movie when the girl attempts to call 911 and her cellphone doesn't work.
As the story progresses, the story covers elements of Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence, and thats when the film gets real good.Because this movie has a great story that shouldn't be spoiled, I'm going to end the review here and say that if you like psychological horror films or thrillers with a twist, you should definitely give Wind Chill a chance.
British actress Emily Blunt, best known for her comic role in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, is great; her character is far from likable but grows on you as the film develops while the unknown-to-me Ashton Holmes is equally good in a sympathetic role.There are no action scenes, no vivid effects and no great moments of drama.
Wind Chill is a movie that was on the border of being a very original horror story told in a new way, but it slightly misfires and ends up settling for mediocrity.
Gregory Jacobs directed this ghostly thriller that stars Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes as two college students sharing a car ride home for the Christmas holidays who become snowbound after the car breaks down.
Another great claustrophobic thriller,from Clooney,after The Jacket.The message is very important.The atmosphere is really near to the quality of The Mothman Propecies,against this time the music is much less than that film had.Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes just shines in this drama.The director Gregory Jacobs did not make a gore -fest,the story stay intelligent,and logical.The sound editing is great too,more times than I waited.The ending is just OK.And if you wait a dirty horror with gore -fest,in the swearing-club,please stay away from this sophisticated,intelligent,dramatic,but dynamic horror film.I hope this type of thrillers will live in the future.Personally I enjoyed this more like a slasher,gore,swearing trash movie..
The first hour is surprisingly entertaining because they just sit in a car freezing and see visions of ghosts and stuff, then the last 30 minutes is where they start seeing that they aren't alone and altogether I thought it was pretty good compared to some of the really dumb horror films that I have seen this year.
I think one of the worst horror films I have seen this year would be Dead Silence because it drug out really bad, but anyways Wind Chill is a pretty good straight to DVD horror film that you may find kind of entertaining if you are just wanting to kick back and watch a movie, just don't expect too much because its not awesome or anything..
The fact that she leaves the car to connect through 911 is so beautiful as she knows he is in great danger and in her place you'd think a thousand time before choosing to leave the car.The story of the guy and the girl is beautiful and has very strong elements that almost make it for all the movie.Definitely worth watching..
i don't agree with the rating(5.9/10)this movie has on this site.i actually thought it deserved a higher rating.it's a pretty eerie and creepy movie.it has a great atmosphere of dread and foreboding.at least i thought so.i always felt like something creepy was about to happen,which it did.but it usually creeped up slowly on you.there were no jump out of your seat moments.this is an old fashioned type chiller.there's no gore,no trick shots,no sudden loud noise to make you jump.this one keeps the creepy atmosphered right to the end.there is lots of suspense in this movie,and some fine acting from Emily Blunt,and Ashton Holmes,who play the the girl and the boy.we are never told their names.this movie is very deliberately paced,so if you're expecting a lot of action,this is probably the wrong movie for you.for me,though,i enjoyed it.my vote for Wind Chill is a 7/10.
Ashton Holme's vulnerable 'guy' is performed with a skill belying his age, I really felt the attraction yet frustration he emotes for his passenger however that said this film is really a platform for Emily Blunt.Emily's performance in 'Wind Chill' is mesmerising, even given the script limits Emily shows us how it should be done, Susan Sarandon wasn't wrong when she described Blunt as one of the finest newcomers she'd worked with in recent years, perhaps ever.In closing my one hope that they both are given the opportunity to shine as actors of extraordinary talent.tb.
It's too bad that the movie never has a good payoff to go with its creepiness.A young college student heading home for the holidays (Emily Blunt), catches a ride with another student whom she meets through a college riding board (Ashton Holmes).
And then the tension and mystery started to build in this chilling film.It would be a good movie to watch on or around Christmas since there isn't a lot of good horror movies to choose from during the holiday season.Emily Blunt gave a nice performance.It was different seeing her playing an American role.I have only seen her in 1 other movie before this one.I am used to her English accent.She did sound convincing,but then her musician boyfriend is from Vancouver(Canada)so she's probably used to hearing him talk,or maybe he helped her lose the accent for the role.I could see where the movie was heading after awhile and it gets spooky and complicated.The effects were good and it was good to see Ashton Holmes again who also gave a really good performance.This movie was well worth the rental..
Back to basics horror/chiller keeps the effects simple and manages to thoroughly entertain.First off I can't quite understand the bizarrely low 5.9 score this picture achieves in light of so many positive reviews, but nevertheless.Wind Chill initially comes across, during the first 10 minutes, as a fairly bog-standard teen-style horror as so many other horrors-by-the-numbers have gone the route of.The longer Wind Chill goes on though, it becomes clear this is a distinct cut above the usual fare expected when the leads are as young as the main 2 protagonists are here.The plot keeps itself simple; 'girl' needs a ride home for the holidays and 'guy' provides one.
What you get is not "torture porn," but old fashioned horror that uses techniques like surprise and creepy settings to send a wind chill up your spine.Emily Blunt (My Summer of Love, The Devil Wears Prada) is hooking up with Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence, A Peaceful Warrior) to get a ride home for Christmas.
Supposing that it was all in their shocked minds –after the accident- (like "Jacob's ladder, or "stay" or " wrong turn") seems comforting somehow, but not enough as it doesn't exactly explain everything, and certainly not the final scene of the boy's ghost leading the girl to salvation Anyway, I was not bored for a single moment watching "wind chill".
And I think it will mean a lot to you too, if you let yourself free to feel its profound tenderness and look at it as a dark story of love, rather than a horror movie!.
You don't need to have seen many horror films to work out what's going on long before the girl and the boy do (neither character is ever named).It is an original idea, but it's reliant on so many films that have come before it that there's unfortunately little to recommend or remember..
The film started slow but Emily Blunt was too good for the viewer to look away so I kept watching despite getting bored at times.
All the while Lost in the Woods and Freezing to Death, Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes, both Good Actors, try and make Sense of the Non-Sensical and Cuddle to Keep Warm.The Movie must have been a Difficult Shoot, because this is Real Snow here in Real Winter, but the Story is Hard to Weather.
Before the worry of the ghosts, the girl (Emily Blunt), had to worry about the guy who was giving her a ride home.The movie offered some eerie and chilling moments.
Sinister things begin to happen to them in the wilderness."Wind Chill" is takes quite some time to develop the story, as the two people meet, drive and talk in the car in an awkward manner.
I actually stumbled upon this film whilst flicking through the movie channels one night whilst I was unwell and unable to sleep.The fact that I have a slight girl crush on Emily Blunt is probably the reason I didn't switch over and watch 'Misery'.
I hadn't even heard of the film, but as I've seen Misery so many times I could re-enact it in a one woman show I thought I'd give it a go.In a nutshell 2 college students decide to car share whilst returning home for Christmas vacation (even though they guy has really planned the ride as a way to get close to the girl on whom he has a crush).
"There's been some pretty bad accidents on this road over the years."I'm a huge fan of Emily Blunt, and I enjoy horror movies to the point that even the mediocre ones are usually worth me checking out.
Wind Chill is the story of two college students(their names are never mentioned in the movie, i don't know if this was intensional or not, its a bit clever you always find out in the end credits ) driving home for Christmas break who become stranded on a road off the highway after getting into a wreck.
Trapped in the car to escape the desperate cold.The leads in this movie are played by Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes,who is in a bunch of stuff but no one remembers him,both do a pretty decent acting i describe it as above average,but the problem of the film is not his performance but the plot it centers around, the theory of eternal return: is a concept that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.
***SPOILERS*** The movie "Wind-Chill" has a "Twilight Zone" like story about these two collage students only known as Girl & Guy, Emily Blunt & Ashton Holmes, driving south from their collage in Pennsylvania to their home in Delaware for the Christmas Holiday's.
"Wind Chill" follows an unnamed college student (Emily Blunt), who ends up catching a ride home for Christmas with a fellow student (Ashton Holmes), whom she doesn't know.
Now it's not the most original story, and it was rather predictable, but Wind Chill in my mind is one of the years best horror movies - hands down!
Which is too bad because it's a pretty surprising and effective little horror movie with a great performance by up-and-coming superstar Emily Blunt.For the record, it's hard to write a review about this without spoilers since the movie keeps shifting directions, which is one of the interesting things about it.Two nameless college kids--Blunt and Ashton Holmes--meet through their college ride board and share a ride home at Christmas time.
But the film is actually a love story trapped inside of a horror movie!
Emily Blunt is the star of this movie and has good chemistry with Ashton Holmes.