Wind Chill (2007)

I've had this one on my watchlist for ages, but it never seemed to be streaming on services I was subscribed to. Netflix recently picked it up, so I figured late is better than never. If they'd started streaming it a bit earlier, I'd have included it in my October horror reviews, but I never said I'd review horror only during that month.

At any rate, Wind Chill is a 2007 horror movie very much in the "Christmas ghost story" wheelhouse. There are times when I'm unsure if that was intentional, but this was produced through a British company, and if there's any country I trust to be conscious of that tradition, it's Great Britain. This one seems a bit divisive: I've seen it defended as one of the better Christmas horror offerings, and I've seen it dismissed as uninspired and dull. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to side with the latter group.

For what it's worth, I suspect a lot of the difference in opinion is due to expectation. This was released nearly twenty years ago, during a time when holiday horror was less prevalent and those movies that did exist tended to lean into camp. Wind Chill may have felt like a breath of fresh air at the time, thanks to a relatively serious tone, solid visual effects, and the presence of Emily Blunt, whose career had just taken off. In an era where scary Christmas movies were understood to be things like Santa's Slay and the 2006 Black Christmas remake I haven't forced myself to watch yet, this must have seemed damn near revolutionary.

But between then and now, the genre has taken off, so the tone isn't the selling point it once was. In addition, the story goes in directions that may or may not have gotten a pass in 2007 but definitely don't now.

The premise is fairly straightforward: after a near-collision, two college students are stranded on a desolate, snowy road just before Christmas and wind up haunted by the spirits of those who have died on that stretch over the decades. So it's at least superficially similar to the 2003 movie, Dead End, though that one was campier, and this one [anti-spoiler alert?] doesn't end with a reveal that anyone was dead the whole time. The near miss was, in fact, a near miss. Though... okay, the driver of the other car was a ghost, but that's obvious to the viewer pretty much from the start. Also, one of the two kids - the boy - is seriously injured, though he's hiding it.

The Boy (which is how he's credited) is played by Ashton Holmes, while The Girl is Emily Blunt. They're the only two characters with a significant amount of screentime, making it easier to paper over the fact no one actually has a name. My best guess is the lack of identities is meant to make it easier to relate to them as everyman-type characters, though... uh... there's a couple big problems with that.

First, they're not at all likeable. From the start The Girl is a jerk to The Boy, even before it's revealed that he's been stalking her for months, lied about where his parents lived as an excuse to offer her a ride, and that the reason they're on an abandoned stretch of haunted road in the first place is he wanted to take her to a scenic overlook for a potentially romantic picnic.

And right now you're probably thinking that folding a ghost story into a horror movie about a woman trapped with her stalker has a lot of premise. And it probably would have if the filmmakers had the common sense to keep the stalker stuff on the horror side of the equation. Instead, The Girl's arc is built around her learning to be more open to people like The Boy. Eventually, their story morphs into a light romance, though [actual spoiler alert] it ends with The Boy dying and his spirit leading her to safety.

The movie isn't so tone-deaf as to think The Boy is without fault - it acknowledges that he shouldn't have lied, and that he's a flawed human being - but we're supposed to sympathize with him and believe he deserves the benefit of the doubt. He's ultimately framed as an awkward nice guy who has trouble approaching women.

Instead of, you know, a sociopathic stalker who shouldn't be trusted.

Goddamn that era was misogynistic. I mean, so is this one, but for the most part pop-culture has gotten more subtle about it, at least. It's hard to imagine a movie with these characters resolving with them kissing, the stalker making a heroic sacrifice, and The Girl looking sadly at his picture. He was still her fucking stalker, and his lies almost got her killed.

The identity of the antagonist actually did age pretty well. The evil spirit is the ghost of a racist, homicidal cop whose victims are among the apparitions the characters see. Some of the ghosts are those killed while he was alive; others are those who died since. Every Christmas, we're told, more people die along that road.

As far as the living are concerned, the ghosts are essentially stuck reenacting the past, an idea foreshadowed by the main characters briefly discussing the concept of the "Eternal Recurrence." Also, the ghosts have ice powers - touching them can give you frostbite.

The bulk of the movie is gradually revealing all of this as the characters try and stay alive through the night. You know, the standard "survive the bleak midwinter night" motif. It would probably have worked if they hadn't written The Girl as dislikeable as possible to justify the movie turning her stalker into a tragic love interest.

Honestly, while I'm bothered ethically by the direction the script takes The Boy, it's more the characters' personalities that keep this from working as a movie. From the start, they're both vapid, uninteresting people. Part of me is almost impressed they managed to write a role for Blunt that's boring to watch - I don't recall ever thinking that about a character she played before.

I mentioned the "coming together to fight back the cold midwinter thing" already, but it's worth emphasizing that the movie ties this into the trope of ghosts generating cold in interesting ways. In a sense, the evil ghost cop is the manifestation of the cold midwinter, which is a neat idea. In addition, Christmas music over the radio is used to mark his reappearance, so Christmas itself is tied into all this. Again, that's a fun way to spin this stuff - I just wish it had been executed under a better (or at the very least different) script.

One aspect of the movie that actually aged well is the color correction. This utilizes a blue color pallet extremely common to the era it was made, to the point I'm not sure if it was selected here for conceptual reasons or just used as a default. Either way, it gives the movie a cold, barren feel appropriate for the premise and setting. This look doesn't hold up in 90% of the movies it's used in, but damned if it doesn't work here.

It's a shame a movie that looks this good, has promising genre elements, and a fantastic lead actress falls apart due to weak writing. Depending on your affinity for ghost movies, you may even find yourself more forgiving than I was, particularly if you're watching specifically for the visual and tonal elements. But, frankly, if that's what you're after, there are better options out there now.