Dead End (2003, Jean-Baptiste Andrea / Fabrice Canepa)

There was definitely some straight-to-video gems scattered throughout your local video stores back in the early-to-mid 2000s. I just remember actually looking forward to taking a chance when I wandered into one of those joints and perused the unfamiliar horror titles you'd find buried amidst 400 copies of "Lord of the Rings" or whatever. "Dead End" was one I rented about 10 years ago and had enjoyed immensely, though I guess I'd forgotten about it until recently when I actually went about finally picking up a copy. This is strange, cool and often humorous flick.

A family (parents, smartassy teenage son, older daughter and her boyfriend) are on a backwoods road trip to a relative's house for Christmas. Their squabbling suffused night time car ride is eventually interrupted by a hot blond woman in a white gown, holding a baby, who appears to be injured and in need of help. While the family splits up at a secluded stop, the daughter's boyfriend disappears (along with the Lady in White) momentarily, before being spotted in the back of a vintage black hearse and THEN turning up mutilated in the road. From there, their endless trip through the forest continues to escalate into a bizarre nightmare that seems to result in a mysterious fatality whenever they happen to get out of the car...

All the performances are strong, the tension is pretty high and there's a nice bit of humor tossed in that doesn't take away from the story which I was grateful for. Definitely a strange and nightmarish concept involving a never ending stretch of road, laced with dangerous anomalies and with a decent 'twist' ending that's a little predictable but still works very well, I thought. Not very liberal in the gore department, as most of the kills and aftermath are pretty much implied, but that's also forgivable considering the film's refreshing originality. "Dead End" is what I would surely consider a 'hidden gem' among the genre.