Southbound is a horror anthology film released in 2015. Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, and Patrick Horvath directed the film, which was produced by Brad Miska. Producers Roxanne Benjamin, Brad Miska, and the rest of the V/H/S team should continue to work on anthologies like these. The Way Out, Siren, The Accident, Jailbreak, and The Way In are five short films shot along the same desolate route in the anthology.
Southbound had its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, and it was released in theaters on February 5, 2016. It was well-received by both the general public and numerous film reviewers. The New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Rolling Stones, and The Hollywood Reporter have all given the film positive reviews.
“Southbound” has an 81 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics agreeing that “it does not entirely avoid the jarring shifts common to anthology films, but thanks to some thrilling twists and turns, this horror road movie is a surprisingly smooth ride.” Southbound has also appeared on a number of ‘Best Horror Films of 2016’ lists, including those published by Rolling Stone, Buzzfeed, and Thrillist.
Now that we have established Southbound as a critically acclaimed film, let us see if it lives up to the hype.
No matter which road you choose, it’s all going south – Southbound
Weary travelers – two men on the run from their pasts, a band on their way to the next gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother looking for his long-lost sister, and a family on vacation – are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets on a desolate stretch of desert highway in a series of interwoven tales of terror and remorse on the open road. Like most anthologies, there is a connecting link to the different stories shown.
The primary link in Southbound is that all the stories take place on one isolated stretch of a highway going South while the minor connective link can be found in the radio commentary being done by Larry Fessenden as Wolfman Jack. The anthology serves as a neat package with an interconnected first and last story directed by the same director.
The movie opens with “The Way Out” directed by Radio Silence showing two blood-covered men, Mitch and Jack, speeding on the highway. We see Mitch holding a crumpled-up picture of a little girl when he spots a skeleton-like monster from his window. They pull into a roadside café for refuge only for things to get more intense from thereon. If one looks carefully, you can see the movie “Carnival of Souls” playing on the television inside the café.
Jack goes to the washroom where he is attacked by an invisible force which results in him trying to escape with Mitch. However, the attempt is rather futile as they get stuck in a time loop where they keep circling back to a gas station while the skeletal creatures begin to increase in the background. Jack tries to fight it and tries to escape but is killed while Mitch seems to think of this as facing his fate.
He follows one of the grim reaper-like creatures into a nearby motel room. He ends up going in circles trying to follow the sound of his daughter’s voice and her apparition. He dies a torturous death being tormented by the regret of not being able to help his daughter in that very room. The segment ends with a do not disturb sign being put on his door.
The next segment, Siren, directed by Roxanne Benjamin starts with a seamless continuation by the simple act of opening a door in the same motel. It follows the journey of three women who are a part of a rock band called The White Tights. They leave the motel in their van but are forced to stop due to a flat tire. Funnily enough, the van actually broke down on the set during production as well.
They are stranded in the middle of the road without assistance or GPS signal but things seem to turn up when an overly nice couple stops by and offers to house them for the night. While Sadie seems to be suspicious of the couple, her friends Ava and Kim do not seem to have the same survival instincts. Their fourth member, Alex, who is dead, is brought up by Kim who blames Sadie for her death.
At dinner, they are served a suspicious-looking meat roast which Sadie declines as she is a vegetarian. After dinner, her friends start vomiting black liquid and the host family gives both of them a medicine mix, which was actually yogurt mixed with buttermilk, and it seems to put the girls in a trance.
Next, we see Sadie falling asleep holding a knife when she is suddenly woken up by a nightmare of Alex’s death. When awake, she looks for her friends only to see them walking out in the middle of the night with their host family. She secretly follows them only to find them in a cult-like situation and is unable to save them. Somehow, she manages to run away but the freedom is short-lived.
We see Sadie get hit by a car because the driver wasn’t paying attention to the road and was busy texting and talking to his wife. And that’s why you should not use your phones while driving folks. Finding life lessons in horror movies 101. Interestingly, the footage is flipped in the entire final sequence ‘Siren’. With that starts the third segment, “Accident”, directed by David Bruckner. It is the goriest of the five stories.
We see his hesitation to check on her but he does get out of the car and help her. He stands over the woman’s mutilated, quivering body before dialing 911. Lucas races the woman to a nearby town after receiving instructions from a dispatcher and someone he believes is a paramedic, only to find it deserted. He finds himself in a deserted hospital emergency room without proper equipment.
The hospital scene was actually filmed in a non-functional wing of a working hospital. He proceeds to follow the directions given to him in an attempt to save the woman’s life. The woman is handled like a human-shaped nesting doll whose every layer is crammed with gore and viscera, with blood spurting, limbs cracking, and cuts performed in purposefully horrific ways according to the instructions of the “surgeon” on the phone call.
Once she succumbs to her injuries, he is instructed to go into the locker room where he finds the same set of clothes that he is wearing, except they are fresh. Once changed, he leaves the hospital and drives off into the night. This is the most artistically done segment in the entire movie and is rather memorable.
The emotions of desperation and helplessness portrayed by Mather Zickel were phenomenal. In fact, Fabianne Therese, who plays Sadie, can really bend her elbow back as shown in the film. Like most anthologies, there is always one story that steals the show. In this film, it was David Bruckner’s segment – “Accident”.
Then starts the fourth segment, Jailbreak, directed by Patrick Horvath. The 911 dispatcher Lucas was talking to, enters a run-down redneck bar where the bartender gets upset with the woman for not locking the door. While initially, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, we see Danny enter the bar with a shotgun looking for his sister Jesse.
He forces the bartender to take him to his sister despite the warnings given to him. The people seem to have supernatural elements and Danny tries to protect his sister from them. However, she is no damsel in distress. She seems to be perfectly content living her current life with the supernatural people as one of their own. Danny kidnaps her and attempts to take her back home against her wishes only to get trapped instead. He gets trapped in the desert by a group of angry supernatural while Jesse drives back to the town to live her life.
The story gets continued with the last shot of Jailbreak with a girl looking at Jesse just as she is about to open the secret door, thus beginning the last segment, “The Way In” directed by Radio Silence. It shows the story of a family on vacation right before their daughter goes off to college. They get inside their vacation house and are about to start making dinner when three men dressed in masks that look like old men break into their house.
They terrorize the family and tie the panic-stricken couple while their daughter hides inside a cupboard. Daryl, the father, recognizes who the men are and what they want, and he pleads with them to save his family. Cait, the mother, is taken aback when one of the men tells her what Daryl did. She is then killed based on “eye for an eye”. Jem, the daughter, comes out of her hiding place and uses scissors to stab one of the men in the back, and steals the bat he was holding.
The other two, to her surprise, tell her to leave. The man in the mask holds up the photograph of Katherine that Mitch looked at in The Way Out as the last thing he sees before he dies. The men kill Daryl once Jem runs away and removes their masks revealing themselves to be Jack and Mitch.
Jem reappears and injures them badly, unfortunately, she gets killed by Mitch just before she can escape. We then see the skeletal monsters reappear, this time rising out of the dead bodies of the family seeking revenge from the men for going too far. “The Way In” wraps the anthology in a neat package by bringing us back to the beginning.
Monster That Appeared In The Movie Exploreds
While the gore in “Accident” took the cake, the Grim Reaper-like skeletal demons intrigued me a lot. In the first story, we don’t know where they come from and why they seem to be chasing Mitch and Jack, however, it all ties together rather neatly in the fifth story.
The visual effect of the monsters and the design were rather nicely done. It was refreshing to see a new creature instead of a ghost-like in most horror films. The grim reaper-like creature has a skeletal body up until the rib cage with bone wings and the lower part resembles the tentacles of a jellyfish except, they are nerves.
There is an unnerving beauty about the grim reaper-like creatures. the emergence of the creatures from within the dead bodies of the families feeds into the aspect of karma. They attack and follow Jack and Mitch for going overboard and killing the entire family instead of just the one who wronged them.
In “The Way Out”, we see Jack being killed by one of the skeletal demons by pushing the skeletal hand down his throat the same way he killed Cait by pushing a cloth down her throat. Similarly, Mitch is made to enter room number 6255 which was the address of the family’s vacation home as well. The skeletal creatures use revenge tactics and terrorize the men in the same way they treated the family. The creatures continuously knock on the door creating panic in Mitch the same way he did with the family.
Another interesting aspect of the movie was the supernatural elements in ‘Jailbreak’. While they didn’t get much screen time, we see one of the men in the bar extend his claws when Danny enters with a shotgun. This might suggest lycanthropes, also known as werewolves. However, we can’t explore much into the supernatural of Jailbreak due to the time limitation. Despite that, we can gather a few things from their brief introduction. Their extended claws give an impression of animal behavior and instincts. There is an aspect of animal strength and speed as well which we can derive from how quickly the four men come and detain Danny.
Why should you watch Southbound 2015?
Southbound keeps you hooked from the beginning till the end. It creates a ‘Twilight Zone of Terror’ around it. Despite having different directors who showcase their narratives in their unique ways, the storyline and cinematography don’t suffer in any way throughout the movie. It has a darker color palette which adds to the suspense and intensity of the scenes.
The commentary on the radio by Larry Fessenden also gives a feeling of fear and creepiness in just the right amount. The characters in the anthology seem to be going through an eerie karmic redemption arc where they must deal with the consequences of their past actions.
Overall, the movie is not very long. It is a one-and-a-half-hour film that will entertain even people with short attention spans. The segments fit well with each other and blend into each other seamlessly leaving you wanting for more. It might be a little light for hardcore horror enjoyers, but it is one of the better anthologies out there. It is a must-watch in my opinion.