A girl with motorphobia (fear of cars) gets trapped in a car on a lonely mountain road. She hates bein' in a car. A psycho killer menaces her. She hates that too!

So as I slide the disc into the ol' movie player I happen to notice the title, and I says to myself "don't do it movie".

HER NAME IS PENNY! Now cut that out!

It's one of those movies that traps us in a confined space with a terrified character, and boy is this character is terrified. If I were the back of the DVD case I'd go so far as to say it's a study in fear. Great job uh, Rachel Miner, that's some quality being scared witless. I hope more directors will consider this actress for their scared girl needs. It was strangely, I don't know, soothing? to watch her freaking out next to dead Mimi Rogers.

And that's the deadest Mimi Rogers I've ever seen. Looks like she's been in movies since this so I guess she was just faking, but damn.

Anyway fear of cars, 'cause just a normal girl wouldn't be scared enough being trapped in a car with a dead body and a killer messing with her. That gag must be first term of screenwriter school. Last movie I watched the girl was afraid of fire (the monster used this to his advantage) and before that fear of caves (and the movie had a cave she really needed to go in). I guess it's to feed us a fully cooked warm fuzzy when the heroine not only defeats the giant pterodactyl but conquers her fear as well.

Here's how bizarro life is: I see so many bad movies that at this point I'll enjoy one simply for what it doesn't do. I'm sure I come off as some kind of everything hater here, but I'm actually so nice and accomodating that I basically liked this movie even though, like nearly all movies, it's overexposed, overscored, overclichéd, and wastes Michael Berryman as a filling station attendant.

I like this movie because it refuses the one big honking owOOOga cliché I started dreading as soon as the movie said she's afraid of cars. First let me explain that this is actually a sci-fi movie taking place in some crazy alternate universe where horny teenage boys would never dream of dating a pretty girl who's afraid of cars, so she just wants a normal life see, and has to work through that with her self-righteous therapist. Movie and I are off to a baaad start. Could it be she'll confront her fear and use a car to run over the killer, then back over him and run over him again, yelling "die fucker"? My experience with the previous bajillion movies I've seen suggests yes.

Spoiler alert. Guess what for the first time ever in the history of slasher movies doesn't happen. Instead her big "I'm not gonna die like this" moment of empowerment totally fizzles and it's right back to crying and popping pills. Thank you movie. I love that enough to overlook all the other crap I was just complaining about. Not saying it's a great ending - it just ends - but unlike most horror movies at least it doesn't select the worst ending possible.

I also like the crazy killer's happy "Hiiiiii!" entrance. Gets a bit too mouthy after that but he/she/it seems genuinely glad to be our murderer this evening. I think it might be a chick. I don't know but I'm saying it's a chick 'cause I like it better that way.