THIN ICE
"Is there someplace we can drop you off?" Uh how about never picking this person up in the first place. Free riders, ugh.
With the state of Virginia looking like the Arctic and all the personas freezing their butts off, 2022's Ice Road Killer represents a different kind of Lifetime movie. I mean we're not in sunny LA and well, it's freaking bitter outside. "Killer" is kind of like the Lifetime Television version of Joyride from twenty years back. No CB radios this time, just cell phones with evil texts and fiendish sneers.
So yeah, Ice Road Killer is about a mother and daughter who pick up a hitchhiker only to find out that said hitchhiker is being hunted down by a psycho in a Mack truck. "Killer" with its almost downtrodden slant and non-emended, peril encounters stars Sarah Allen, Erica Anderson, and Micheal Swatton. These actors are game but their performances are almost spastic and overwrought. I mean nearly laughable.
Ice Road Killer sort of deviates from the Lifetime path and in the Lifetime language, the film is wholly original with some intricate plotting. However, despite an ominous musical score (that tries real hard), "Killer" suffers from a vapid script with its characters constantly trying to explain things to one another. This is all done while the so-called killer is rarely seen and probably twiddling his thumbs (probably).
With Ice Road Killer, director Max McGuire (a TV movie veteran) fails to mount much tension when it literally could've been there for the taking. And that's even when he dupes that famous scene from The Shining (Jack Torrance yielding an ax to a door). McGuire wants us the audience to take "Killer" seriously and his flick is indeed, overly serious. But the viewer looking for that draining and exhausting cinematic experience is still left out in the "cold". Natch.
Written by Jesse Burleson
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