FENDER BENDER (2016)

Studio:       Shout Factory and Chiller Films
Director:    Mark Pavia
Writer:       Mark Pavia
Producer:  Jordan Fields, Gus Krieger, Carl Lucas, Joshua Bunting
Stars:     Makenzie Vega, Dre Davis, Cassidy Freeman, Kelsey Montoya, Harrison Sim, Steven Michael Quezada, Lora Cunningham, Bill Sage

Review Score:

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Summary:

A masked killer stalks a teenage girl home alone after the two of them exchange personal information in an auto accident.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Arriving home alone, Jennifer Barker examines a handwritten slip of personal information exchanged after an auto accident earlier that day. The name on the paper reads Steve Harrison, although another first name is scribbled out. Jennifer receives a series of alarming text messages from the Driver, who sneaks into Jennifer’s house wearing a leather mask and jacket. The Driver stabs and kills Jennifer. At a gas station afterward, the Driver strangely counts out an odd amount of exact change to pay for his fill-up.

Distraught after confirming that her boyfriend Andy is cheating on her, teenager Hilary Diaz stops her mom’s car at a stop sign. The Driver rear-ends her. Hilary and the Driver have an uncomfortable encounter while exchanging information. The Driver gives Hilary a slip of paper identifying him as Johnathon Barker, with Jennifer’s name blacked out below his. Hilary takes pictures of the Driver and his car before going home.

Hilary’s parents ground her for damaging the car. As punishment, Hilary’s parents leave her home alone while they go away for the weekend to see a play that Hilary had been looking forward to.

While on the phone reporting the accident to family friend Mrs. Davidson at Lifetime Insurance, Hilary spots the Driver’s car passing by on the street outside. Later that night, the Driver texts her. A cake with the word “sorry” written on it in black icing is then left anonymously on top of the damaged car.

Hilary becomes further alarmed when she takes a shower and afterward finds new pictures on her phone of her in the bathroom. She also discovers that the photos from the accident scene were deleted.

Hilary’s friends Rachel and Erik surprise her with an unexpected visit. Thinking that the “sorry” cake could have been an apology gesture from Andy, Rachel and Erik eat it.

Andy comes over drunk. Hilary forces him to leave by threatening him with a baseball bat. Outside, the Driver stabs Andy to death.

Mrs. Davidson calls to tell Hilary that the information she received from the Driver actually belongs to Jennifer Barker, who was found murdered. The phone suddenly goes dead and the power is cut.

Clad in his leather disguise, the Driver appears in the house. Rachel and Erik’s movements are slowed from being drugged by the cake. Separated from Rachel as the Driver begins chasing them, Hilary helps Erik get down to the basement.

Rachel hides underneath a bed upstairs. The Driver finds her, stabs her, and pushes her out a second floor window. Rachel tries crawling to safety, but the Driver gets in his car and runs over her.

Hilary attempts to help Erik escape. The Driver catches them and stabs Erik in the throat.

Hilary runs outside and finds Andy and Rachel’s bodies as the Driver chases her in his car. Hilary runs back inside for a knife. A confrontation with the Driver ends when Hilary stabs him, douses him in gasoline, and after a fight, manages to ignite him with his car’s cigarette lighter. The driver burns before collapsing in a puddle on the ground.

Hilary goes back inside to call 911 with a cellphone, but is unable to get a clear connection. The Driver returns and stabs Hilary to death while she begs for her life.

Hilary’s mother calls Hilary’s voicemail with an apology message. The Driver calmly removes his clothes and showers in the Diaz home. He then counts the exact change from Hilary’s wallet and adds her driver’s license to the collection on the inside roof of his car. After arranging the dead bodies in their respective cars outside, the Driver goes to a gas station and fills up his tank for the exact amount recovered from Hilary’s wallet. The Driver takes to the highway until his fuel gauge runs down to empty. The Driver then takes the next exit to find a new victim.

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Review:

A few weeks ago, I was hit from behind by a car.  Four cars, actually.  At least one person wasn’t paying attention when traffic came to a stop, piledriving a chain reaction of front bumpers into rear bumpers, in turn creating a whole lot of headaches, figurative and literal, for everyone involved.

I made out better than most as the car furthest in front.  The next two cars however, knocked into me as a sandwich of twisted metal courtesy of the two trucks behind them.

With more fictional horror stories than can be remembered having passed through my mind over the years, my imagination had a lot of dark road to wander while waiting for CHP to arrive on scene and take a report.  I lost count of the many macabre scenarios quickly dreamed up alongside the freeway.

What if a celebrity stalker intentionally rear-ended his/her target just to get that person out of the car?  What if a serial killer was transporting a trunk full of bodies and his secret was exposed as corpses spilled all over the concrete?  And being obligated by circumstance to give out my name, number, address, and email to four complete strangers, I couldn’t help but wonder, what if one of these people is a psychotic killer determined to track the rest of us down and destroy our lives?

That last uncomfortable thought inspires the premise behind filmmaker Mark Pavia’s stripped-down thriller “Fender Bender” from Shout Factory and Chiller Films.  If you’ve ever feared how an auto accident could go from annoying inconvenience to extraordinary nightmare, “Fender Bender” provides reason to lose sleep the next time you hand over personal info to the driver who just clipped your side-view mirror.

Hilary thinks she has it bad when she discovers her boyfriend Andy has another girl on the side.  Hilary has it even worse when a mysterious man bangs into her from behind while she contemplates these teenage troubles at a stop sign.

An awkward encounter ensues with the other driver shifting and speaking strangely, like a predator sizing prey from behind mirrored sunglasses and an uncomfortable grin.  Hilary’s spider-sense tingles, but she takes a few snapshots, exchanges contact information, and continues home to face the music for the damage done to mom’s brand new Nissan.

Hilary ends up grounded.  Instead of going away with her parents as planned, Hilary now has to spend her weekend home alone.  She isn’t alone for long though.  Spotting the mystery man’s car rolling by outside is only the first of many odd encounters experienced throughout the night, culminating in a full-on home invasion perpetrated by a knife-clutching maniac in a frightening leather mask.

Teases of cool cleverness wink throughout “Fender Bender,” particularly in its design for “The Driver,” the film’s credit for its nameless madman.  In addition to his “Death Race”-like leather Frankenstein look, The Driver has an ingenious movie villain method of using loose change to determine his next random victim.  Like Michael Myers, The Driver is mostly a catalyst for carnage, and that conception of his character is indicative of much of the movie’s to-the-point approach.

There’s a chance you may find yourself wishing “Fender Bender” covered more ground with its “opening up one’s self to an auto accident stranger” concept than the movie has the means, or inclination, to explore.  But “Fender Bender” desires simplicity as a straightforward slasher with a mild VCR vibe.

Sometimes, the slender script and stark style are so skeletal that there isn’t even a pulse to pound.  Early scenes stall for time by hanging on establishing shots like Hilary sulking in her bedroom or The Driver caressing the paper with Hilary’s address during a seems-like-forever car wash.  Tension starts tightening with the usual false jump scares, although there are only so many minutes one can watch Hilary stare wide-eyed at a noise in the dark before blaming the storm outside again.

Confined almost entirely to one location and centered almost solely on one person, “Fender Bender” starves somewhat from a scarcity of characters and scene setups.  When Hilary is finally forced to muster her Final Girl courage, she has to defy dopiness that doesn’t make her endearing in the first place.  “Maybe whoever sneaked in on me while showering before secretly deleting the accident pictures on my phone was my best friend playing a prank!”  “Maybe the person who put a cake on the car iced with ‘sorry’ in black letters was my ex-boyfriend apologizing!”  Maybe believability could benefit from a protagonist with a better brain.

Gorehounds hungry for a throat-grabbing slasher would probably prefer to swap the slow-witted teen and her paltry two friends for the higher body count thrills of a college kid party instead.  At the same time, “Fender Bender” can’t be faulted for fitting the bill it needs to, which is being a respectable first foray into original movie production from Shout Factory created for a Chiller TV debut.  The movie is designed to be a no muss, no fuss, no frills thriller.  It makes perfect sense as an inexpensive freshman film for the home video distribution label.

“Fender Bender” isn’t a movie you’ll ache to return to after a one-and-done viewing, but it functions just fine as a Friday night feature for a quick bite of cable television horror.  It helps to get in the spirit if you’ve ever caught yourself considering, “what evil could this person get up to with my personal contact information?”  If you’ve never considered it before, you certainly might now.

Review Score:  60

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