Drive Back: Popcorn Frights Film Festival Review 

‘Drive Back’ follows a couple returning from their engagement party, only to find themselves on a seemingly endless road. If that wasn’t bad enough, a killer who calls the road home is pursuing them.

Upon reading this, I thought the synopsis was fun and interesting. As a fan of time travel, paradoxes and time loops in films and TV shows, I really enjoyed that aspect and it was utilized fantastically; the couple having their memories and their realities tested meant that they and, furthermore the audience, couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. It held an aspect of mystery as the film brought up questions regarding the couple’s situation and the workings of the road. On top of this, the killer itself was threatening and the costuming choice was really well done; its outfit was chosen for a specific reason, and was ultimately important to the film’s plot. 

With all this in consideration, I expected the film to be a fast-paced B-movie style slasher film on a unique road. But that’s not what ‘Drive Back’ offers.

The film focuses on recently engaged couple Reid (Zack Gold – Psycho Brother In-Law) and Olivia (Whit Kunschik – Country Gold) and their acting is good enough for what the film offers in terms of its writing; it’s very reminiscent of a B-slasher movie. Reid is a comic artist who seems constantly beaten by life and, as a result, has lost confidence in himself and his relationship with his father is strained due to past traumas. Furthermore, he’s lost confidence in his relationship with his fiancé. Olivia, meanwhile, has secrets of her own which get revealed as the film goes on. Beside this, she’s mostly written as the pregnant fiancé, a plot point that doesn’t go anywhere similarly to the focal road. And, while their past comes back to haunt them as they continue to travel, it would’ve benefited the film to see Olivia take on more of a role in comparison to Reid and what’s asked of him. 

But the characters aren’t the only aspect that makes ‘Drive Back’ a disappointing film; it’s also tedious and takes pleasure in grabbing every horror film trope that it can. The first act contains nothing but horror film tropes; the dead phone signal, meeting a creepy old woman in the middle of nowhere, a hitchhiker who warns them not to go further, stopping the car to help a stranger, plus both characters not looking where they’re driving when they’re talking. The latter is especially used a few times to help push them to the next part of the plot but it’s just a dull way of executing the story. And it isn’t fast paced like I was hoping; it’s slow and doesn’t get to its actual premise until the halfway mark. And, while that works with other films, it works because the first half is used to develop the character the film will be following, whereas ‘Drive Back’ does not do that. 

‘Drive Back’ has an interesting premise and has a great second half, but it’s getting to that second half that’s a chore. The film desperately tries to be scary on occasion with random jumpscares and tired horror film tropes but falls flat on its face with this. And while Zack Gold and Whit Kunschik are acting their way through this well enough, the characters themselves are uneven in terms of their writing. It seems like Reid was written and fleshed out first, while Olivia was a second thought and is only written to be the pregnant fiancé. ‘Drive Back’ would’ve worked better as a 10–15-minute short film, thus making the writing and pacing more concise but, as it stands in terms of a feature film, drive back and far away from this one. 

---

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.

---

Trending on BRWC:

---

Cool Posts From Around the Web:

---

---