Night Drive (4 Stars)

This is the 18th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

"Night Drive" is a film that caught me off guard. I read all the film descriptions in the festival guide before the festival began, so I had a rough idea what to expect from each film, but nothing prepared me for this film.

The film begins on 22nd December 2018 in Los Angeles. A driver called Russell picks up a young woman called Charlotte. The word Uber isn't used, but he's obviously an Uber driver. Russell is due to go to a Christmas Party, so Charlotte is his last job of the evening. Initially she only wants to travel a short distance, but she keeps giving new directions, so he tells her he doesn't have time and she should get a new driver. She gives him a bundle of cash that persuades him to carry on driving her.

She suggests that they should stop for a drink at a bar. He drinks two pints of beer. When they leave Charlotte asks if he's still able to drive, and he insists that two beers is well within his limit. We see that he has no trouble driving. Some people can handle their drink better than others. She insists on taking a diversion through some small streets to look at the Christmas lights. A man runs in front of their car and is almost killed. Russell wants to call an ambulance, but Charlotte says that if the police are involved Russell will be arrested for drunk driving, and it's important to her that he drives her to her destination.

The action escalates as they continue their night drive. Russell is shocked to find out that Charlotte is a cold blooded killer, murdering people they meet while he looks on in horror.

At this point in the film I was thinking to myself, "The film's okay, but there's nothing special about it". Then, 15 minutes from the end, everything changed. It wasn't a plot twist. It was a genre twist. What I mean is that things happened that were totally unexpected. It's the same as "From Dusk Till Dawn", which seems to be a crime story until vampires suddenly appear, except in "Night Drive" the genre change comes much later in the film.

This is a film that I must see again. It's not the best film in the festival, but the way it developed was a shock like I was being punched in the stomach.