By Jack Ransom - November 10, 2024
Another addition to the ever growing Shudder streaming library. Black Cab follows a couple (Synovve Karlsen & Luke Norris), who find their jovial and strange cab driver (Nick Frost) diverting them to a remote, haunted road revealing disturbing motives and his true intentions.
I had literally heard nothing about this before the upcoming Shudder screener list arrived in my inbox. As a big fan of Nick Frost (co-starring in three of my favourite comedy films of all time with the Cornetto Trilogy and one of my favourite series of all-time: Spaced), I was immediately interested in the idea of him in an antagonist role, especially within the horror genre. Unfortunately, he really is the only reason to watch this, as after the initial opening act delivers an intriguing and tense situation, the film quickly becomes undone by repetitive dialogue, familiar characters and a tacked on, dull supernatural element.
Clocking in at just under 90 minutes, the film is decently paced up until the halfway mark where it nosedives into dull expository/melodramatic dumping and a lack of substance to the reveals and especially the Twilight Zone-esque idea of a haunted road, which is ripe for horror shenanigans. As I previously mentioned, the opening act is genuinely quite intriguing and sets up an instantaneously frosty (pun intended) and uncomfortable atmosphere, as the already prickly vibes between Anne (Karlson) and Patrick (Norris) are accentuated as Ian (Frost) antagonises and threatens (at first understandably) at Patrick as he continues to raise his voice and control Anne.
However, once the stun baton comes out and the doors lock the line gets crossed. From here, the film coasts along as Ian vents about ghosts, hallucinations, his own family troubles, as both Anne and Patrick attempt to escape. The claustrophobia is palpable at first, but after a while it's abundantly clear that even with the short runtime the film feels like it is just spinning wheels.
The horror element boils down to the occasional appearance of a CGI/filter ghostly woman that pops up routinely to scream through the windows or wing mirrors and stand on the side of the street pointing. The convoluted explanation isn’t particularly interesting at all and the ambiguous finale just left me befuddled rather than intrigued or provoking any thought. Production-wise the lower budget isn’t too distracting (digital ghosts aside) and the slick, neon-tinged night-time lighting and shadow usage makes for some nice shots.
Frost is clearly having a riot as he squeals, cackles, rambles, shouts and cries his way through the film. Sure, I certainly wouldn’t want to end up in a taxi with his character… but the dialogue he has to deliver at times is so eye-rollingly generic ‘man-over-the-edge’ material and his hammy delivery, numb-inducing level of profanity and almost parody level of mania just had me thinking that unfortunately he can’t shake the funny guy type-casting. Synovve Karlsen is fine here as the reserved and anxious Anne and Luke Norris is suitably unlikeable and obnoxious as her brash fiance.
Black Cab starts off decently, but unfortunately hits the brakes around the halfway mark and descends into snooze-inducing thriller territory that wastes its fun supernatural gimmick. Frost is having a blast as a stereotypical lunatic and the film is solidly shot, however the underdeveloped horror angle, poor pacing in the second half, lack of scares and dodgy dialogue let it down.
Black Cab is now streaming on Shudder
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