Film Review: Southbound

Southbound is a horror anthology that gives us five interconnected stories that focus on people traveling through an unnamed stretch of desolate desert road in the southwest. The multiple stories are linked by characters or specific locations and encompass a wide range of horrors from the nightmarish supernatural to real life tragedy and unfortunately for these travelers, these aren’t easy trips.

Ranging from desert cults to the search for a missing person or the desperate call for help after an accident to being tracked by something not quite natural, Southbound offers a great mix of different stories and styles that  remain linked by a unifying theme and look. The various stories are all written and acted very well without any one story standing out as a weak spot, which is unusual for an anthology film. Plus Southbound features an impressive mix of both digital and practical special effects. There are some shocking sequences featuring some disturbing practical effects while the film also features some wonderfully realized digital creature work that defies the movie’s presumably modest budget.

Horror anthologies have made a noticeable comeback in recent years with the popularity of the V/H/S and ABC’s Of Death franchises and if Southbound and the recent Tales Of Halloween are an indication of what is to come, then I am eagerly awaiting the next wave of anthologies. I highly recommend that fans of horror films check out Southbound, which opens at the Cable Car Cinema on Tuesday, February 16.

Southbound (2015); Directors: Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath, and Radio Silence; Starring: Fabianne Therese, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Yow