“Curve” is a 2016 survival horror film directed by Iain Softley who is known for his work on “Backbeat”, “Hackers”, “The Wings of the Dove”, “K-PAX”, and “The Skeleton Key”. The two main stars of the film are played by the beautiful Julianne Hough, who is known for her roles in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Footloose”, and Teddy Sears who was on the television show “Raising the Bar” and the film “A Single Man”; which is a fantastic film by the way if you haven’t seen it yet. “Curve” comes at us from the producer Jason Blum who is the amazing man who brought us the horror movies Paranormal Activity , The Purge, Insidious , and Sinister . Knowing that going in, I was extremely excited to crack into and watch this film.
Our main protagonist Mallory, as the film begins, is driving all alone down a road in her truck. She stops at a fork in the road and this where one of the classic movie tropes kicks in. Mallory looks to the left and looks to the right and instead of going down the obvious safe looking highway, she heads down the creepy looking dusty road that seems to have not been traveled in a long time. This is not a bad thing though. Just because a movie fills out all the basic check boxes for a cookie cutter horror flick does not automatically mean it will be terrible. They do not end there though. Predictably, her truck stalls out and she is stuck in the middle of nowhere. Seemingly out of thin air, the soon to be antagonist appears. Teddy Sears is a fantastic actor and he plays the villain, Christian, very well. He helps Mallory get her car working again and as payment he gets her to accept driving him to the nearby town. Obviously this is a bad idea. Christian turns out to be a crazed psycho and takes Mallory hostage while she is driving. Mallory gets the wise idea to floor the gas pedal and then slam on the brakes to try and eject Christian through the windshield. Sadly, this goes wrong and we are finally deep into the juicy part of the plot.
As far as I could tell there is little to no CG used in “Curve”. Shout outs to any film crew that staves off the easier to use CG for the more time consuming practical effects. The excellent practical effects really get to be shown off during the crash scene. The car careening off the road and tumbling into the woods looked absolutely fantastic! As the crash comes to a close, the viewer comes to discover that Mallory’s plan backfired horribly. Christian got away unscathed but Mallory’s leg has been pinned under the seat and she cannot get out.
This is the part of the film where the acting from Sears really shines. He is wonderful at playing the sinister evil doer. The only nitpick I have about his performance is that he didn’t appear on screen enough! After the crash he almost completely disappears other than to come back to taunt Mallory a few times. Although he did sneak in a blatant “SAW” reference that you will undoubtedly catch and I thoroughly enjoyed. Within the means of the plot itself him not sticking around long makes sense I suppose but still, I would have enjoyed seeing him pop up on screen more often. This grand praise of Ted’s performance is not meant to douse on Hough’s acting though. She plays the role of the trapped and suffering Mallory very wonderfully.
Even though “Curve”, as I said above, is filled to the brim with predictability, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was some down time in the film though and it is undoubtedly due to the lack of things to do with the characters. Once Mallory is trapped it is literally just a wait until she escapes and gets away. The acting is great but it’s watered down because of the lack of interaction between the cast members. Also, I won’t spoil it, but the ending had me liking it until the very end and then it kind of annoyed me but who knows what you’ll think of it?
Overall “Curve” may be a cookie cutter film but I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you can get past all the obvious tropes of the movie you will have fun with it too. It’s one of those sit back with some friends and eat some popcorn type of flicks. I give “Curve” a 6.5/10 and suggest it to you to watch on a rainy day when you have nothing else to do and nowhere to go. I am definitely looking forward to the next film Jason Blum produces. He’s definitely been one of my many inspirations to become a horror film producer myself.
