Saturday 20 August 2016

Road Games - UK DVD review

Road Games, a film that does for rural France what Wolf Creek did for the Australian outback, is available from UK VOD and DVD outlets this month from the Frightfest Presents label.

Jack (Andrew Simpson – The Survivalist) is an English teenager, stranded in rural France, who is trying to hitch a ride back to Calais. Unfortunately, with police reports of a serial killer on the loose, he’s not having a lot of luck getting a ride. By a strange twist of fate, he meets up with a young French backpacker named Veronique (Joséphine de La Baume – Kiss of the Damned, Rush), who’s in a similar situation, and as they’re heading the same way, decide to try and hitch a ride together.

When they are offered a lift by an eccentric Frenchman (Frederic Pierot – The Returned) who bizarrely drives around in a 1970s English Rover car, they think their luck has changed. Particularly when he offers to put them up for the night at his remote farmhouse, because the port of Calais has been shut down by strike action.

But Jack soon comes to realise that when something appears too good to be true, that’s because it isn’t, as something is definitely amiss with their new French friend and his American wife (played by the legendary Barbara Crampton – Re-Animator, You’re Next), who seem warm and welcoming one minute, then cold and unfriendly the next. So when Veronique disappears the next morning and finds himself being unceremoniously shown the door, he realises something is very wrong indeed. But will he live long enough to find out what?

Written and directed by newcomer Abner Pastoll, I was extremely impressed with his feature film directorial debut here, which proved to be a very tense and unnerving thriller. Featuring multiple plot twists and red herrings, that will have you wondering just what the hell is going on, right up till the very end. 

Admittedly the film does start off kind of slow as the main characters are being introduced, but the pace quickly picks up once we realise the friendly Frenchman and his wife aren’t so friendly after all and Jack becomes embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse and not just with the French-American couple....

The disc includes a number of special features, including…

Introduction (10 mins) – which is actually an interview with director Abner Pastoll, conducted by journalist Alan Jones.
Making of (6mins) – A behind the scenes look at the film, including interviews with the cast and crew.
Outtakes (6mins) – A collection of outtakes and gaffs 
Deleted scenes (7mins) – A collection of several scenes that were either cut or shortened from the film
Trailers (x3)
Bonus trailers for other titles on the Frightfest Presents label.

Road Games is released to VOD and Digital Download 26th August and DVD 29th Aug.

If you liked Haute Tension or the Wolf Creek films (or even if you didn’t), you would be seriously advised to check this one out as this gets a serious thumbs up from me!

Buy the UK DVD from Amazon.co.uk

 

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