SHORT SHARP SHOCKS # 1 - ONE FOR THE ROAD (2017)

 

Welcome to the first in a new series here on Tales From The Back Room - Short Sharp Shocks, where I'll be taking a look at some of the many short horror films that are out there. Afterall, why should only long form movies get all the love ? So, without further ado onto the first review...

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Paul Ward based on a short story by Stephen King

STARRING - Reggie Bannister as Herb "Tooky" Tooklander, Adam Robitel as Booth, Danny O Connor as Gerard Lumley,  Audrey Walters as Janey Lumley, Drew Walters as Francis Lumley.

PLOT - In the deserted back roads of Maine on a dark stormy, foggy night, a car breaks down on the outskirts of a small desolate town called Salem's Lot.

The car's driver, Gerard, leaves behind his wife and small son to seek help. He eventually arrives at a roadhouse bar and meets Herb and Booth, two local men who become fearful when Gerard tells them the cars location. The town of Salem's Lot isn't as deserted as it seems. Evil stalks it's dark streets and highways at night. No one dares go there after dark.

Reluctantly Herb and Booth join Gerard in an attempt to bring his wife and child back to safety, but something is waiting for them in the cold, dark night. Something not quite dead and not quite alive...

PERFORMANCES - As you can probably guess by reading the above synopsis, One For The Road is a sequel to Stephen King's vampire novel Salem's Lot. The original short story was published in King's anthology of short stories Night Shift and is regarded as being one of his best short tales.

As this is only a very brief film with a short runtime (around 17 minutes) don't go into this expecting deep meaningful characterisation. The characters are all bare bones, there to move the story on to it's shocking conclusion, regardless of that the three main characters are all well acted.

Adam Robitel is Booth who acts as the narrator of the tale. He appears onscreen as the events take place but also has a suitably doom laden voice over relating the story to us. This device works really well in setting up a creepy atmosphere, giving the story a spooky campfire ghost story feel.

Danny O'Conner is the lost traveller Gerard, he starts off being scornful of Herb and Booth's warnings about the Lot, thinking it to be backwoods hillbilly nonsense (he's clearly a city dweller) but as the story progresses he becomes increasingly worried and panicked about his wife and kid being stuck alone in the dark foggy night. O'Connor plays it well and gets the characters's frustration and desperation across nicely.

Last but not least is Reggie Bannister playing Herb Tooklander. Bannister is well known to horror fans for his role in the Phantasm series of movies. His "horror veteran" status serves to enhance this low budget short and give it an air of respectability and quality. He's just as good as you'd expect him to be playing the straight talking, world weary Herb. Bannister also provides a song for the soundtrack and I believe helped to produce the short as well.

VIOLENCE - Perhaps unsurprisingly it turns out that Gerard's wife and kid have been full on vampirised by the time our heroes arrive back at Salem's Lot (Gerard's only been gone about an hour in the story's time, so this has got to rank as possibly THE quickest transformation from normal human to vampire ever). Needless to say Gerard soon falls victim to his now undead wife. It's not pretty, she literally tears his throat out with her fangs, spitting great bloody chunks of his neck out of her mouth as she does so. It's brutal. It's shocking. It's great.

SFX - The vampire wife and child are VERY well done. The little boy vampire is especially creepy.

What is it about the town of Salem's Lot and vampire kids that make you shit your pants ?

RATING - This is a very solid adaptation of a classic Stephen King terror tale. It has a chilling atmosphere with it's dark foggy lonely roads that contrast nicely with the warm cozy look of Herb Tooklander's bar. 

Some liberties have been taken with the original story. In the prose version the character of Booth is considerably older than he is here. Also Gerard's child is female and his car breaks down in a snowstorm as opposed to the thick "pea souper" fog we get here (but that's ok, fog's just as atmospheric as snow for a horror story, so all's well and good). These changes may annoy some hardcore King fans but nothing ever remains one hundred percent accurate in any adaptation so this shouldn't really be a deal breaker for anyone.

Give a go. At only 17 minutes long it's not going to eat into too much of your day (and if you don't like this version there are several other different adaptations of this story out there). This is an excellent creepy little slice of Stephen King terror. 5 creepy vampire kids out of 5. It's on YouTube as we speak, so what are you waiting for ?...

ART - 

If you want to read the original story, it appears in Stephen King's Night Shift which also comes highly recommended.