A little offbeat and relaxed for a Hitchcockian road thriller that's part "Rear Window", part "Duel", part "Jeepers Crepers", part "Joy Ride", and that's why it works for the first half. Truckin' along with a uniquely non-villainous Stacy Keach in his big rig as he riffs on fellow travelers with his trusty dingo Boswell, this opening layout is a charming enough movie on its own before the serial killer plot even gets going, and once suspicions arise and Keach starts…

Beginning: vintage William Castle warning about the deadly consequences of watching this movie. Back in the day, he handed out life insurance policies as people entered the theater, and had nurses posted outside. Imagine if anyone could ever make a fright flick so intense it warranted such measures...

Middle: this is the movie, and it's a bore. Promising a swift suspense yarn (we see a clock and are told that the characters have 75 minutes to find a person who's…

Pragmatic!

Is the best way to describe this scrappy, intense, black-comedy thriller from the rising master of scrappy, intense, black-comedy thrillers Jeremy Saulnier. Like his debut "Murder Party", this is a chamber piece, confining a young punk band to mostly one room of a neo-Nazi club they made the mistake of playing at, where they become sitting ducks after witnessing a murder. And close quarters suit Saulnier's modus operandi impeccably, as he once again tackles a succinct premise with an…

Oooh yeah! One of those movies that reignites my love for the medium, not that it was flagging or anything, but this actually thrilled me physically and as a (formerly) prospective writer myself. I never wanted to be avant garde or anything – my dream was to write and/or make smart but accessible entertainment like this (and preferably in genre territory), so to see it pulled off so expertly every now and then in movies like "10 Cloverfield Lane" feels…