The days of the mini cab driver making fatuous small talk seems to be a thing of the past. No more do we get asked, ‘Live local, do you?’ and then having to point out that he’s just picked us up from our house. Black cab driver Ian (Nick Frost) initially is not really that kind of cabbie. Physically imposing , a little bit gruff but on the surface jocular enough belies a far more disturbing character when he picks up Patrick ( Luke Norris) and Anne (Synnove Karlsen) a pair who have had a meal with another couple of friends where Ryan has dropped the bombshell that he’s moving back in with Anne. It’s as much news to her as it is to their friends. What is certain is that Ryan is the sort of emotional bulldozer of a man who has all the sensitivity of someone trying to have sex wearing a hazmat suit.
But the pair set off home in the black cab of the title as driven by Nick Frost’s irrepressably chatty man wheedling out of them that there’s an uneasy relationship between the couple. And as they all drive down the isolated , mist riddled road a supernatural element enters the journey, one that has been prefaced by a spooky story that Ryan has told the others over dinner. Its where things take a dark turn with Ryan losing consciousness, the spectral presence of a dead woman appears intermittently and Frost’s behaviour becomes more obviously unhinged.
The performances serve the story well and Frost is especially good with his usual screen laddishness barely concealing an increasingly troubled man with an easy propensity for violence. It’s a world away from his films with Simon Pegg and his recent film ‘Get Away’ suggests an interest in far darker material and here he comfortably inhabits the role. Director Bruce Goodison captures the spooky atmosphere well in what is, for most of the film, confined to the black cab and the creepy moments and jump scares are never telegraphed by the films score. Plotting is a little muddled at times and it does drag on occasion but with an 88 minute running time Black Cab is a decent low budget movie with menace.
related feature : Nick Frost, Aisling Bea chat about their comedy horror, ‘Get Away’ (SPOILERS alert)
related feature : Nick Frost’s horror film, ‘Get Away’ reviewed here
Here’s the Black Cab trailer…….
Black Cab is released on 7th April 2025
The post Black Cab – BLU RAY / DVD appeared first on Any Good Films.
from Any Good Films https://ift.tt/YgQdV1f
