Jackson Booth-Millard
I was expecting a scary movie with a masked killer stalking a deaf woman, but that is another film with exactly the same title, but I went along with it anyway, directed by Mark Tonderai (House at the End of the Street). Basically Zakes Abbot (Waterloo Road's William Ash) and his girlfriend Beth (In the Club's Christine Bottomley) are driving on a rainy night on the M1 motorway, both are tired, irritable, and bickering continuously about their fragile relationship. Beth is eager to tell Zakes she cheated on him, but cannot find the right moment, she falls asleep in the passenger seat, moments later Zakes misses an exit, carelessly cuts up a large white truck, skids in the road and barely avoids a collision. The truck violently overtakes Zakes, before both vehicles stop for traffic, as the truck stops, the tailgate flips open, revealing a naked woman bound and bloodied in a cage, screaming for help, before Zakes can get closer, the door is slammed shut. Zakes panics and wakes Beth up to tell her what he saw, they immediately call the police, but the truck's licence plate is covered by dirt, so they describe the truck and where they are. When they stop again for traffic, Zakes gets out of the car to take a photo inside the truck, but he and Beth argue when he refuses to get any more involved with the situation. Stopping at the next service station, Beth officially breaks up with Zakes and walks away, she calls her friend to come and collect her, believing she will change her mind, Zakes waits for her in the car. Then Zakes sees the large white truck pull up, he watches the driver (The Living Daylights' Andreas Wisniewski, whose face is never seen), a man in a dark, hooded jacket, get out and go inside. Zakes follows minutes later to look for Beth, but she is missing, he gets panicked and goes looking in the ladies' toilets, where two security officers throw him out and do not his explanation. Zakes then finds Beth's necklace in the car park, he believes she has been taken by the man in the truck, but his car wheels have been slashed by a group of rowdy football fans, so Zakes steals a car from the station and follows after the truck. Meanwhile, one of the security guards decides to watch the CCTV to see if Zakes was telling the truth, he sees Beth in the footage, but he is killed by the other security guard before he can do anything, the other guard is associated with the kidnapping. Zakes finds a truck stop, it contains many identical trucks, a police car arrives, Zakes is handcuffed and arrested for trespassing, he explains what is going and begs the officer to help him, the officer agrees to check the trucks, but he is attacked and killed. Zakes escapes from the car, he runs through the woods with the man following him, he returns to the service station, but he cannot call the police, he is now believed to be a criminal, so he steals another car and returns to the truck stop. Zakes parks and stops to catch his breath, suddenly a bloody woman comes to the window, claiming she was kidnapped, he lets her in the car, he says he needs her help to find her girlfriend, but his phone battery dies, so he drives to a farmhouse he saw to call for help, now he has a witness to back up his story. The elderly couple in the farmhouse let them in cautiously, the woman Zakes picked up offers to call the police, but she cuts the line, revealing herself to be part of the kidnap, she calls the hooded man, kills the elderly couple, and then attacks Zakes. Zakes wakes with his hands nailed to the floorboards, he realises the woman is not who she said she was, he manages to get himself free before she can kill him, he stabs her in the eye with one of the nails. Bleeding and exhausted, Zakes takes the woman's mobile phone and heads back to the truck site, he uses the elderly couple's dog to trigger the security flood lights, while the truck driver kills the dog offscreen and the coast is clear, Zakes gets inside before the security system is reactivated. Zakes finds Beth chained outside in a cage, she tells him the man has the keys, he quietly goes inside the shedhouse, where he finds several other women locked up and gagged, begging for help, they are being used for human trafficking. Zakes grabs the keys from the man's clothes and returns to Beth to help her escape, promising to come back for the others, the man realises someone is hiding on site, he calls the woman's phone, which Zakes has on him, the man follows the ringing. However Zakes has hidden the phone on the seat of an empty truck, he is hiding in a forklift truck, the man steps in the right spot, and Zakes pushes a button in the crane to release a heavy load container, the man is crushed to death, Zakes runs back to help Beth, she has already released herself, the two reunite and sob with relief. Also starring The Trip's Claire Keelan as Wendy, Trainspotting's Stuart McQuarrie as Thorpe, Robbie Gee as Chimponda, Peter Wyatt as Mr. Coates and Brazil's Sheila Reid as Mrs. Coates. You can tell this film is low-budget, it is a fairly simple format, a "curiosity killed the cat" situation, with a sulky but likable lead trying to save his girlfriend from a nasty unseen truck driver, similar in ways to the Spielberg movie Duel, it is pretty slow the majority of the time, but it does get tense just enough to keep it interesting, a reasonable thriller. Okay!
Nitzan Havoc
Hush is a classic Horror/Thriller, which means a Thriller with some unnerving and sometimes frightening motives. However, it's really not the best that British cinema has to offer.Reading the synopsis, I thought to myself "oh great, another Joyride/Hitchhiker rip-off", and I must admit I was wrong. While repeating the story of a mad truck driver and a couple on the road, Hush is different and somewhat unique in its own way. It might be the mystery shroud surrounding the trucker, who never says a word (unlike world famous Rusty Nail whose voice is legend amongst us Horror freaks). It might be the relationship between the protagonist and his girlfriend and the way it unravels throughout the film. It might be the sadly unsuccessful twist attempted by the screenwriter. It might be all of these together.The main problem with Hush, except the fact that the twist was painfully obvious and felt like a huge waste of time, was the final editing. It felt like one hour of story/footage had been violently pushed into 30 minutes of film. Too many things, allegedly and obviously important, overlooked, too many questions left unanswered, and too many answers where no questions were. Pity.All in all, Hush is enjoyable enough, and you could do a lot worst. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing worth recommending or trashing.
