Hush (2009)

Studio: IFC

Release Date: 2009

Directed By: Mark Tonderai

Cast: William Ash, Christine Bottomley

Review By: Marc Patterson

IFC has been doing a solid job lately of picking up some unique titles for their Midnight series of films.  Hush is among the latest in this lineup from IFC, though sadly it fails to maintain the consistency for high quality horror that we otherwise have come to expect.  Not to say it’s all bad…  Characters Zakes (Ash) and Elizabeth (Bottomley) are traveling along the highway late at night in a rain spell having a bit of a lovers spat.  Distracted from his driving Zakes inadvertently veers to the side of the road causing a cargo truck behind them to swerve in order to avoid a collision.  When the truck pulls in front of them the back inexplicably opens revealing a naked woman screaming, locked in a cage.  At first Zakes does the logical thing and calls the police, but then where good sense starts irrationality quickly takes over as Elizabeth persuades him to follow the truck.  Seemingly they meet good fortune when they lose track of the truck.  After all, that’s not really a situation one wants to get involved with.  But, the truck ironically finds them at a roadside stop and while separated at the stop Elizabeth is abducted and Zakes needs to take the law into his own hands if he’s going to chase his girl down and get her back alive. 

We are, at this point, cajoled through what seems to be an endless barrage of one illogical situation after another and the filmmakers ask us to suspend our belief in any semblance of reasonable human behavior throughout.  Zakes encounters mounting danger at every turn from a variety of characters, none of which are what they seem to be.  The predictability factor for this film is through the roof, making this film a real snoozer.  While Hush is well constructed in terms of film 101 structure and scenes, this is ultimately a collage of references seen in nearly every standard horror thriller, right down to the untrustworthy police officers from the Hitchcockian school.  While I’d love to tell you that some moments took me by surprise, unfortunately none did and the film barely raised an eyebrow, nonetheless a single hair on the back of my neck.  Horrorphiles will comment that the look and feel is borrowed heavily upon from Alexandre Aja, though High Tension this isn’t. 

The level of brutality and bloodletting is equally disappointing.  This is one so called horror film that runs ridiculously light on the red.  It’s as though the director intended to show us that it is possible to create a tension filled thriller with plausible scares, and still avoid copious amounts of gore.  The problem is that the film features neither plausible scares nor tension filled moments.  All this of course under the assumption that there is actual killing to be done by our hooded villain, which fails to be seen.  That’s right, our lead villain lays claim to a single kill, which was relegated to the shadows.

Mark Tonderai’s first stab at horror is a flat out failure and the film would have been best served by finding a permanent spot in the rubbish bin.  Clearly the film employs enough standardized motifs to make it passable as competent, and worthy of being picked up by IFC, but ultimately this is a film that will only find an audience with casual horror fans looking for a cheap thrill on a Saturday night.  For true genre fans… we know better and we know garbage when we see it, and Hush is garbage.  The only truly suspenseful question that propelled me to sit the film through to its concluding act was “What formulated, paint by color outcome did Tonderai choose to roll to credits on?”  Turns out I had that one figured out too. 

Brutal As Hell Rating:

2/5