Wind Chill (2007)
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 25
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 13
Wind Chill is a ghost story with a clunky and unpolished script that fails to keep viewers in suspense.
Average Rating: 6/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 2
Wind Chill is a ghost story with a clunky and unpolished script that fails to keep viewers in suspense.
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Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 7,953
Movie Info
Two college students heading home for the holidays break down on a lonesome stretch of highway, only to find themselves targeted by the malevolent spirits of other travelers who met their end on the same road in a supernatural road movie directed by Greg Jacobs, and produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. All she (Emily Blunt) wanted was to make it back home to Delaware for the holidays. Though her classmate (Ashton Holmes) has a working car and is happy to oblige by offering a ride,
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Cast
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Emily Blunt
Girl -
Ashton Holmes
Guy -
Martin Donovan
Highway Patrolman
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All Critics (25) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (13) | DVD (4)
Almost always, you can expect the worst when a studio dumps a film without advance screenings. But the well-crafted thriller Wind Chill, with rising star Emily Blunt, is the very rare case where somebody (in this case, Sony) goofed.
Top CriticWell before day breaks, it's the movie's plot (which would have made for an outstanding Outer Limits episode) that has come to seem stuck in an endless loop.
Wind Chill, for all its flaws, is an often spooky and imaginative ghost story that contains a genuine creepiness.
A moody, spooky tale, rendered with laudable economy.
Wind Chill blows into increasingly nightmarish and ludicrous territory, introducing frostbitten ghouls, priestly apparitions, a nasty cop, and a cycle of hallucinations.
Elevates familiar fright motifs to levels of shivery dismay.
...a refreshingly adult horror effort that boasts a pair of phenomenal lead performances.
Imagine a campfire story told by Jack London after downing a bottle of Jack Daniels. The chilly atmosphere would be in full force but the plotting might be a bit punch drunk.
After a great set-up, we're left stranded by the side of the road, wishing the filmmakers had come up with a conclusion at least somewhere close to as good.
At the very least, it's an old-fashioned ghost story with half a brain -- and that's got to be worth more than a casual glance.
As clunky as it is emotionally unconvincing.
The passage to ex-rental DVD bins will be swift for this lethally pretentious bit of low-rent schlock.
Ropey, derivative and very, very boring horror-thriller.
Spooky, smart and subtle.
Promising elements never quite bind.
Could have worked, if only I had given a damn.
Wind Chill suffers from an underdeveloped screenplay, which feels like a first draft, erroneously deemed ready for production.
Wind Chill deserves a merit badge for even trying to tell a horror story without resorting to tired and amateurish shock value. The picture's puzzle might not piece together properly, but the effort is appreciated.
Despite its failings, Wind Chill represents a road rarely taken by 21st-century American horror films: Original (in the non-remake sense of the term), subtle and restrained.
A tidy little ghost story, with interesting characters, a captivating performance by up-and-comer Emily Blunt.
All surface and no depth, with an incongruous ending that makes for an unsatisfying ending to an indecisive movie.
Though the oblique and confused storytelling saps the heat out of Wind Chill, the picture still boasts a game performance from Emily Blunt
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The main reason I watched Wind Chill was the fact it starred Emily Blunt. I tend to keep a fairly open mind when it comes to experiencing ridiculous horror movies that just happen to have talented actresses in them because sometimes they surprise me and turn out to be pretty good. Past examples include Christina Ricci in The Gathering and Hilary Swank in The Reaping. Despite a marvellous set up in the first twenty minutes or so the rest of the film unfortunately doesn't live up to it, I think it could have been better as a short film because as a whole it doesn't have a lot of inventive material. I essentialy found both of those movies more interesting and less baggy than Wind Chill. The film has a reasonable idea for a throwaway claustrophobic thriller but as it unfolds it annoyingly succumbs to the cliche's and groan inducing sentimentality. Not at one point did I jump and neither was I scared watching it in the slightest. It runs out of steam and gets repetitive pretty quickly and although Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes do the best with the material they are given they alone cannot save it from it's complete lack of shivering chills. Consequently the film just loses its way, drags itself along and quite simply ended up boring me almost in it's entirety.