Road Games (Fausse Route)
Jack (Andrew Simpson), a just-dumped Brit, is hitch-hiking through France en route to blighty and falls in with Veronique (Josephine de la Baume), a French girl who’s also on the road … and they are taken in by Grizard (Frederic Pierrot) and his wife Mary (Barbara Crampton), who live in an isolated, rambling mansion. There’s a roadkill collector (Feodor Atkine) lurking around too, and the suggestion is that the corpses disposed of include human beings – with mention of an uncaught local serial killer who preys on transients. The cast is small enough for suspicion to spread around everyone – even seeming protagonist Jack has a few questions to answer – though the way the plot throws the young people together in an old dark house that’s difficult to leave is a hint to those who’ve seen more than a few of these things as to which way it’s going to turn out. However, along the way, there are plenty of interesting, unsettling twists and the atmos stuff in the house works well. The French setting is a callback to the likes of Crescendo, And Soon the Darkness and Maniac – British horror movies that take advantage of the big empty sunstruck landscape of France and spend time with twisted families in cluttered gothic homes. Crampton, in the midst of reinventing herself as a middle-aged character actress (We Are Still Here, Sun Choke), is excellent as the nervous wife. Written and directed by Abner Pastoll.
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