ROADSIDE is a cheapjack horror/thriller combo about a couple who go out driving one night and end up being stranded in their car by a sniper lurking in the woods. It's a low budget suspense movie that clearly wants to be the next PHONE BOOTH, but the single location set-up of the thing is all it has going for it.Instead this is a boring film filled with unlikeable characters and overwrought acting. Nothing much happens for long stretches and attempts at suspense fall flat over and over again. It doesn't help that you don't give a fig for the characters supposedly in peril while the villain of the piece is equally dull and yawnsome. Lots of shooting-in-the-dark cinematography follows, leaving viewers to squint their eyes and wonder why they're still watching until the final, predictable scene unfolds.

First: Acting—some of it was good and some pretty bad. The husband was pretty good, the wife? I've seen better high school actors. The Bad Guy was believable before we knew he was a bad guy, then he got cheesy and I winced at his evil laugh. The cop was adequate. Second: Production values were surprisingly good. Night filming is very difficult and this movie did it beautifully. Direction was pretty good as well.Now SPOILERS! The ending made no sense. It was like a Twilight Zone ending was added. There was no resolution. There was no explaining why the Bad Guy knew who Erin was. We kept thinking the bad guy must be Erin's angry husband. And why would the Bad Guy give the couple a flare gun??? It just didn't make sense. Coitus interruptus is what it was.But the WORST was that we were supposed to believe it was winter and days before Christmas and that the car might need chains on the tires, yet the trees were covered in green foliage! We never saw breath frosting from the character's mouths—nothing! And it would have been easily solved, at least the green leaves, by saying it was a freakishly early cold snap—We had a lot of snow the third weekend in October here in the Midwest. It totally detracted from the film for me and was a story element that just wasn't necessary. It would have been fine without the "cold" storyline.The thing is that I still saw lots of promise with this director and will be watching out for him in the future.

****Not sure if this really contains a spoiler. I talk about the end, but I don't give it away. Just a bit about whether or not I liked the end. So if you don't want to know if it had a good, great, horrible or even alright ending, stop reading towards the end of this review.****I went into this with little expectation of liking it. Then I did like it. The dialogue between the husband and wife was entertaining, never forced or stilted nor boring. The writing was reasonably done as was the acting. Honestly the only character I disliked was the bad guy. Duh, right? I didn't dislike him because he was the bad guy I just didn't like the way his lines were delivered. Knowing what I know now(the ending) I wonder if this was done on purpose. I watched this really waiting for what I thought, no, knew to happen. But it didn't it keep on . Then it ended. Yep. It ended. All movies end you are thinking. Yeah, they do. But this one ended before I thought it would. It surprised me. That doesn't happen often. Did I like the end? I don't know. Maybe I'm just to used to "and they all lived happily ever after, The End." Maybe I just like more explanation. I don't know. I didn't hate it. But I didn't love it either. Sequel , anyone?

The film starts effectively enough. The problem is that it just becomes a another very standard, very predictable, only mildly entertaining horror flick. no real surprises (that ending is super cliché, people aren't going to fall for it). The acting is decent enough, but it does become grating at a certain point (although really, only because the characters themselves do and the writing starts getting worse). But I'm giving it a 5 because at no point is it actually bad, just never very good. Maybe some will find more enjoyment out of this, but for me, not a total waste of time but not a proactive time spend either. So really, depends on you if a viewing is warranted