You can tell it was low budget, but only with the creature. It is a creature flick (my only spoiler).You cannot generally tell it's low budget by the acting (with one exception, which is thankfully brief) or direction.The story is so simple, and easy to follow which alone, nearly makes you uneasy. There are some fantastic moments of pure suspense. You fall in love with every character, even the creature. Yes, even the creature was given character, which I loved intensely.I did not get bored. My butt didn't hurt. It's not too long, nor is it too short. The pacing is spot on. It's not meant to be a work of art, so you don't get a whole lot of character development. What you do get are eerily familiar, and realistic characters that don't see a need for talking too much about themselves (because most, real people don't).I'd like to see the actors and director again. Could've been edited slightly better though.

This film would be a 6, maybe a 7 for me. However the director somehow failed to notice that every time they called action their cameraman was in the middle of a fit.The movie basically goes like this: Shake shake shake.Oh someone died back there.Shake shake shake plot shake shake shake.It's a real shame as the creature looked quite cool but you never really see it for long enough to appreciate this. Even static scenes in the gas station have to wobble about just to punch home the peril of the situation to us.The film gave me motion sickness.M

Smart little horror this, what it lacks in story originality it more than makes up for elsewhere.Young lovers Seth (Paulo Costanzo) and Polly (Jill Wagner) find their attempts at a romantic camping trip usurped by their inadequacies in the great outdoors. But this soon becomes the very least of their problems, because they are car-jacked by escaped convict Dennis Farell (Shea Whigham) and his drug addict girlfriend Lacey Belisle (Rachel Kerbs). When they run over what they think is an animal of some sort, it signals the start of a terrifying ordeal that will see the group backed into the interior of a gas station and forced to fight for their lives.What follows is a solid hour of suspense, terror, horrifying scenes and rich character dynamics. It's a siege situation with the enemy some sort of porcupine – vegetable – human hybrid, and it's relentless and clever. Director Toby Wilkins doesn't once let the picture sag or suffer from filler, all scenes and character interactions are integral to the plotting. Mercifully free of characters doing the dumb things that are so inherent in this splinter (hrr hrr hrr) of horror, Wilkins' film is consistently effective in what it wants to achieve.The effects are kept to a minimum and the only real complaint is that for every attack by the creature we are subjected to shakycam. If this is to hide the effects work we don't know? And it's always great to have a horror assailant be used sparingly on a visual level, but the shakycam becomes annoying and feels like a bit of a cheat in the final quarter. The small cast offer up some sterling performances, with Whigham standing out as the hateful villain, while Nelson Cragg's photography strips the colours down to primal indie level and the film is better for it.A pleasant surprise and recommended to horror fans after a quick and bloody siege horror that never disappoints. 8/10

Bad couple = good casting. Good couple = bad casting.Casting dramatically effects the suspension of disbelief. We do not give film actors the pass that give to stage actors. This is one of those films where the protagonist couple is so unbelievable it makes it difficult to empathize with the characters. It's not as if there is a shortage of actors to choose from. Or a shortage of casting directors. The only reason that we see actors like this in a horror flick, especially given that they're such a great career venue for young talent, is that the casting director has some agenda that is contrary to the film's interest.