DRIVE BACK - Mark Reviews Movies

Drive Back, Dark Sky Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 7, 2024

The initial premise of Drive Back is creepy enough for a horror tale. In it, a couple, returning home to the city after having an engagement party at a venue in the middle of the woods, becomes lost on an old, mostly unknown road surrounded by dense forest. What's waiting for them down this path? They don't know, and while we can take a guess or two, the unknown part of it makes the idea unsettling.

Sure, Jon Sarro's screenplay does seem pretty familiar in the beginning, too, but a scary idea that anyone can comprehend or has experienced to some extent or another still has inherent potential. As the couple travels farther and farther on this road, many, many things go wrong, and surprisingly, the masked killer in the woods might be the least significant of their problems.

Sarro deserves some credit, of course, for doing something different with material that appears and acts as formula in its introduction. We meet Reid (Zack Gold) and Olivia (Whit Kunschik), who are engaged to be married and just want to go home after a long and sometimes uncomfortable party honoring the event. Reid's having a particularly tough time of it, because his father (played by Robert Lewis Stephenson) was at the shindig, and from a brief prologue, it's established that they have a troubled past. The father's the outdoorsy type, and Reid now draws comic strips professionally. On a camping trip a couple decades ago, the two clashed over hunting, and nothing has been the same between them since.

The big thing with that setup, though, is the father gives his son a lot of important stuff that will come in handy if something goes wrong a road trip. It's convenient timing, of course, because soon enough, Reid and Olivia become lost, ask for directions at a little store in the middle of nowhere, and learn of a secret shortcut that will get them to the interstate faster than any other road nearby. Well, that's how the shop's eccentric owner (played by Madonna Young Magee) puts it, although her slightly sinister air, her cackling, and the fact that it looks as if her husband is dead behind the counter might be more important to note than the directions.

Reid and Olivia ignore all of that, however, and start heading down that road. It seems pleasant and scenic at first, apart from a random car bumper blocking the way and a hitchhiker (Jim Tuck) who warns them to turn around after running at their car with a tree branch. This is definitely one of those cases in which we know more than the characters in the movie—not because Sarro and director Cody Ashford have given us some information or clues as to what's going on, but simply because we know this is a horror movie and can figure out where things are heading.

It seems that way, at least, but then, the movie throws everything for a metaphorical and literal loop. The main characters start to forget what has happened on their drive. Reid starts seeing things, like a fountain of blood pouring on to the windshield, and hearing a strange voice from the radio, nudging at his darkest fears about his fiancée. Olivia's certain they've only been on this road for about 20 minutes, but Reid is convinced it has been a few hours. It's still daylight out, but Reid's watch tells him that it should be nighttime. Yes, there's something amiss with this shortcut, and it's necessarily the knife-wielding psychopath who suddenly appears in the front of the car.

Without giving away too much about what's happening here, time is the key—how these characters experience it, how certain events and conversations seem to repeat themselves, why no amount of driving on the road appears to be getting them anywhere near the other side of this forest. The idea of the conceit is right in front of us, but the mechanics of the execution of this looping trap never make quite enough sense for us to care about them. It's all about feeling unmoored and uncertain, and in the vagueness of what happens and when it does both in the narrative and on a wider timeline, the movie definitely leaves us feeling that way.

It's bit too much, perhaps, because most of what happens just comes across as trying to trick us. Matters aren't helped by the fact that the gimmick makes this material intrinsically repetitive, as Reid and Olivia keep arguing, forgetting where and when they are, and revealing a bit too much about a relationship issue from the past that neither of them has overcome at times when other things seem more pressing. As a relationship drama, the movie is better as a horror movie.

As a horror tale, Drive Back isn't particularly convincing, either, mainly because the metaphysical threat of the road is so fuzzy and the physical one, namely that masked killer, seems like an afterthought—until it ties directly to the bigger gimmick. This is a slightly neat, unexpected concept executed in a haphazard way.

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