Black Cab

Too bad. I'm sure there's a good film that could be chiseled out of Black Cab, but that remains to be seen. Maybe in the hands of a better writer, editor and director, Black Cab could've been thrilling enough to warrant a sequel.

Atmospherically, the set designers got that right with their oodles of moody/rainy darkness. Where the film falls apart is in its unoriginality. You could see where the driver was heading from a mile away. There was also nothing new about the ghosts and there were too many loose ends to consider Black Cab complete.

The general acting ranged from okay to annoying. As a former taxi driver, I watched this movie based on its description alone without reading any reviews on IMDb. I should have next time.

Holy heck this was a tough watch. And quite a bizarre one too I have to say. On the one hand you have a lame duck of a horror movie with almost nothing to offer, yet amongst all that you have the natural charisma of Nick Frost doing everything it can to shine through. Could he do enough to save it? He could not.

This movie just didn't work on any level. It wasn't intriguing, it wasn't scary or mysterious or tense. It was just a nothing ride. And frankly quite an unpleasant one too. All the characters were highly detestable people and not a lot of fun to spend 90 minutes with.

For whatever reason the British do not seem to do horror all that well. I've seen very few British horror movies over the years that I've actually enjoyed and 'Black Cab' was certainly not one of them. 4/10.

Semi-creepy, semi-interesting with horrible flow and logic, insipid acting, minuscule gore, below-average psychological ghost impact, nothing to say on it besides it makes you sleep like tiny dosage of propofol. British indie horror that's slightly below-average, phlegmatically underachieved and never should have been produced. That black cab should have eaten the driver whole up.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 3
• Production value/impact: 4.5
• Development: 5.5
• Realism: 4.5
• Entertainment: 1.5
• Acting: 6
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 6
• VFX: 7.5
• Music/score/sound: 4.5
• Depth: 2
• Logic: 1
• Flow: 2
• Horror/thriller/drama: 3
• Ending: 1.

British indie horror can sometimes be a bit hit and miss. This one is fairly middle of the road.

Nick Frost plays his part well. Equal parts troubled, scared, creepy and even endearing. He steals the show for me although Synnove Karlsen puts in a decent turn.

The movie plays on classic haunted highway ghost stories and has some creepy moments. Theres an interesting angle about how vulnerable we really are in a cab driven by someone we know nothing about but that isn't really the purpose of the story, although the depth in Frost's performance did make me think.

Shot in the dark and taking place in a single night with a significant proportion inside a London cab, there's some good use of light. A couple of jump scares and some creepy exposition delivered nicely by Frost give the film just enough atmosphere to keep you engaged.

My favourite part was the ending which is a little ambiguous and probably open to some interpretation.

Overall though I thought it was pretty average fare.

Rating Breakdown: Story - 1.00 :: Direction - 1.25 :: Pacing - 0.75 :: Performances - 1.25 :: Entertainment - 1.00 :::: TOTAL - 5.25/10

Horror movies should do one of two things: terrify you or, at the very least, keep you engaged. Black Cab (2024), unfortunately, does neither. Instead, it's a sluggish, uninspired supernatural thriller that feels like being stuck in the world's longest and most awkward taxi ride, only instead of fearing for your life, you're just wishing the journey would end.

The premise had potential: a young woman, Anne (Synnøve Karlsen), takes a ride in a cab that turns out to be more than just a mode of transport. It should have been a tense, psychological horror about isolation and the supernatural. Instead, it's a mystery that forgets to drop clues and a ghost story that forgets to be scary. The pacing is painfully slow, and while director Bruce Goodison does have an eye for lighting and atmosphere, it's not enough to salvage the film's plodding nature.

Nick Frost as the sinister cab driver is the best thing about this film, though for the wrong reasons. Rather than playing his role with the chilling subtlety it needed, he instead delivers a performance best described as Ghost Story: The Pantomime Edition. He overacts to the point of absurdity, making it impossible to take him seriously. Meanwhile, Synnøve Karlsen, as our protagonist, plays her role with such visible disinterest that you'd think she wandered onto set by accident and was too polite to leave.

Ultimately, Black Cab is a film that squanders its premise, fumbles its horror, and crawls at a pace that makes even the slowest taxi meter look like it's running on turbo mode. Unless you've already watched Pulse for the umpteenth time and are desperate for something new, this is one ride you might want to skip.