Road Games

This is a weird film but it's worth the hour and half to watch it.

Road Games: About a couple of hitchhikers who encounter an odd couple in France. BTW there's a serial killer on the loose, preying on hitchhikers, leaving their butchered remains to be found. There's also a crazy taxidermist in the area. Some real tension and a few shocks. Worth watching. 6/10. On Horror Channel.

Since a few decades, you can rely on the French if you seek brutal, perverted, and excessively violent backwoods horror! Of course, they're nearly not all as good as "Haute Tension", "Frontière(s)", and "Martyrs", but most still have that same raw & disturbing atmosphere and shocking gore. "Road Games" has a bit of intense atmosphere, but sorely disappoints when it comes to gore. Writer/director Pastoll goes for mystery and surprise twists instead, but his script isn't as unpredictable as he thinks.

The story opens with the young and British Jack hitchhiking on a remote backwoods French road on which there are signs warning drivers not to pick up hitchhikers. He meets the beautiful and adventurous Véronique, and they continue their trip together, until they are picked up by a friendly chap in an old junk car and taken to an isolated countryside mansion. The elderly host Grizar and his British-American wife Mary (Barbara Crampton) are suspiciously friendly and creepily hospitable, so experienced horror fanatics know what to expect. The next morning, Véronique has vanished, and Jack is treated a lot less warm and welcoming!

The twist at the end is clever, for sure, but not unique or super-intelligent, and it certainly doesn't justify the lack of action earlier in the film. If you pay attention to details and little human behaviors & interactions, you can anticipate the climax or at least feel less surprised when it comes. The weirdest thing about "Road Games" is the constant switching between the French and English language by three out of four of the lead characters. I speak French, so it didn't bother me too much, but I reckon it must be confusing and irritating when you don't. Barbara Crampton, the favorite starlet of every horror-loving male born between 1970 and 1990, also recites half of her lines in French, but she's completely incomprehensible. I don't know if she took French classes or learned her lines phonetically, but the pronunciation is abysmal.

Jack is hitch hiking home to England in 'rural France' – more on that later. Along the way he encounters Veronique and they decide to hitch together. This is against the backdrop of a serial killer who – you guessed it – hunts hitch hikers – mwahh etc

Then they encounter a strange older couple who have an old Rover 2000 but live in a fantastic château and their paths having crossed will have ramifications. That is when things get interesting.

Now to say any more would be too much of a reveal. That said there is not a lot of substance to this film. The actors are all very good and manage to illicit empathy and conjure up a sense of foreboding as and when is necessary. The music is right too and I liked the locations – actually believing it was France, but some of the shots were done in Kent.

This film has its fans and its detractors and its fans but despite the tension and the pacing it still felt a little on the slow side. I did however 'enjoy' it for the most part but appreciate why some have labelled it a 'B Movie', than again some films in that genre are excellent.

Let me start off by saying that I kind of enjoyed this movie. However . . .

It's a total mess. A mountain of things happen that you, as the viewer, are supposed to take in and remember later as events unfold.

Scary mansion, older folk and mannequins are all in abundance. What isn't, is any sense of a linear plot after the first 40 minutes.

Watch it if you're drunk, speak French, or enjoy worrying about the dialogue flipping between English and subtitled French.