Director: Abner Pastoll
Writer: Abner Pastoll (Screenplay)
Starring: Andrew Simpson, Josephine de La Baume, Frederic Pierrot, Barbara Crampton, Feodor Atkine, Pierre Boulanger
Plot: The sun drenched days of summer turn dark and ominous for hitchhiking duo Jack and Véronique when they become inexplicably entangled with a mysterious married couple and a local road kill collector in rural France.
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Road Games starts when English hitchhiker Jack (Simpson) runs into French woman Veronique (Baume) with the two looking to travel around France together. The pair find themselves taken in by Grizard (Pierrot) and Mary (Crampton) as they take shelter for the night, but not everything is right about the couple.
As the Jack learns the truth about the couple, he finds himself needing to go in search of Veronique, while alluding the damage they want to inflict on him.
Thoughts on Road Games
Characters – Jack is the English traveler in France, he finds himself trying to hitchhike around the country, where he meets the beautiful Veronique, he is more laid back than she is, just looking to get home, before finding himself fighting for his life. Veronique is the free-spirit that travels to keep herself happy in life, searching for her own happiness, which she finds with Jack, Grizard and Mary are the couple that invite the two for a night out of the elements, while having their own motivation for being so welcoming to visitors.
Performances – When it comes to the performances, we don’t get anything that step up and shine to the level that will make this film feel as intense as it wants to be.
Story – The story here follows two hitchhikers that finds themselves being targeted by a serial killer in the French countryside in a battle to survive. This is a story that is pretty much by the book, with the only real change being the two hitchhikers not knowing each other first, which does add a minor mystery about everything, if we hadn’t been given everything from the open sequence. In the end the story does feel flatter than it should be, not giving us enough to work on to get behind.
Horror/Mystery – The horror in the film does seem to bounce between maybes, without giving us any of the true shock value we would expect to see here, with the mystery keeping us guessing along the way, waiting for more shocks it does get.
Settings – The film is set in the French countryside, which does show how away from the characters are from the big world.
Scene of the Movie – The escape.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Jumping between English and French in the same conversation.
Final Thoughts – This is a horror mystery that just doesn’t get to hit the levels it wants to, looking for a shock, it never does enough to delivery.