Marcus Adams followed up Brit chiller ‘Long Time Dead’ with this tale of a blood cult stalking youngsters.
Octane was somewhat unfairly pissed on by the critics when it was released goodness knows when. I found it hard to keep track of the film’s theatrical run, as the distribs kept changing the release date before leaking it into a few cinemas and changing it’s title before sending it DTV stateside.
The film follows Senga Wilson and her daughter Nat who are driving home, when they encounter all manner of suspicious goings on along the highway.
It soon transpires that a network of freaky occultist types are preying on vulnerable teens, and they have Nat in their sights.
Madeline Stowe really carries the film and she was very good as a stressed out mother trying to cope with a teenage daughter and a high power job, but she did have support from a great cast of young stars.
The film was very stylish and had a great score by Orbital, and the soundtrack was very good too. It was very dark in tone, but was beautifully shot and had great lighting and it was also very unpredictable, which was rare for a road movie.
The film was quite slowly paced despite being only 90 minutes but it helped keep you intrigued, and there is a great one liner here too.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Octane may be a little confusing, but that is no reason to say that a film is bad. This one is definitely for intelligent audiences that don’t need every single plot point spelled out to them, and all in all it’s greatly misunderstood.
