Before riding mechanics in Fast & Furious, Paul Walker lost face and the steering wheel in A trip to hella tense road-trip produced by JJ Abrams.
Anyone who grew up in the 1990s couldn’t escape the phenomenon of neo-slashers, these post-modern horror films quoting Halloween, the night of the masks and others Friday 13 as paragons of fear in the cinema. A trend started by Scream then continued with Remember… last summer Where Urban Legendonly more or less valid offspring in the middle of a gaggle of runts (we would so much like to forget Deadly Valentine’s Day).
It is therefore in this context that A trip to hell, sold as yet another trendy slasher, with its masked killer ready to eviscerate sassy young teens. And oh surprise, it is not. No second degree or ironic commentary on the genre here, but a film reviving an old-school spirit, in the wake of the brilliant Hitcher or huge Duel by Steven Spielberg. The tribute to Uncle Spielby’s masterpiece is even frankly obvious since it is the filmmaker’s spiritual son, JJ Abrams, who co-wrote the screenplay and produced the project with his very young company Bad Robot Productions.
Realized by John Dahla film noir specialist, A trip to hell also features rising star Paul Walker, soon to star in one of the fastest and furious franchises of the 2000s. so as not to slip?
SOS from a driver in distress
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT
From the opening credits, interference interferes with several radio frequencies. We then glean here and there information from anonymous cibists, and we capture on the fly a conversation that differs radically from other transmissions. It’s actually a private phone call between Lewis (Paul Walker) and Venna (Leelee Sobieski), and the simple fact of being able to listen to them as one would follow a weather report has something inappropriate.
A few seconds later, the two lovebirds appear on the screen. There, the young man, then in California, offers the girl of his dreams to pick her up by car in Colorado to cross the country together, and of course, she accepts. On the road, Lewis has the misfortune to pick up his big brother, Fuller (Steve Zahn), freshly released from prison, and finds himself by his own fault trapping a truck driver who is a little too gullible by means of a CB radio. When they arrange to meet him in the middle of the night, in a motel, the two brothers quickly realize that they are dealing with a crank of the worst kind.
Flashed by the chief radar
Invisibilized during almost the entire film, the antagonist is reduced to a voice on the airwaves, but not just any voice, since it is that of Ted Levine, the interpreter of Buffalo Bill in Thesilenceofthelambs. The challenge is brilliantly taken up and allows the psychopathic driver to invite himself inside the vehicle occupied by the protagonists at any time. A true co-passenger, he visually manifests his presence via the luminous oscillation of the radio signal, changing from green to red. A color code which immediately warns of the danger and which the director echoes within the sets themselves throughout the film, according to the lights of the cars and the neon signs.
A trip to hell: Paul Walker in the fake remake of Spielberg’s Duel