REVIEW: Road rage is a killer in new horror movie ‘Tailgate’
Photo: Tailgate features a family on the run from a homicidal killer. Photo courtesy of Film Movement / Provided by Foundry Communications with permission.
Tailgate, the new horror movie from writer-director Lodewijk Crijns, is an intense thriller that proves to be a cautionary tale for anyone who takes to the road and breaks the rules. In this 86-minute pulser, a family is heading into the country for a nice visit with the in-laws, and the father decides to tailgate behind a white van because they are running late. He beeps, swerves and nearly causes an accident. What the patriarch of this family doesn’t know is that driving that white van is a homicidal killer who likes to spray his victims with aerosolized poison.
There’s not much plot to Tailgate, and the characterization is minimal. There’s this family and this killer, and that’s about it. They all meet on the open road, and the narrative quickly devolves into an exercise of survival. However, underneath the spartan structure of this cat-and-mouse game is a commentary about road rage and how simple actions can blossom into life-altering, even deadly, events.
Crijns is a skilled director who is able to amp up the intensity, and he keeps that intensity going strong for the duration of the entire film. There is no letting up during this high-stakes car chase, and there is a real sense of dread and foreboding dripping from every minute of the movie. That’s an immense credit to Crijns as a director.
There are a few twists and turns along the way, plus a couple plot developments that are real head-scratchers. Audience members will find themselves yelling at the screen more than once, telling the family to go left or go right.
What is perhaps the eeriest feeling of all is the lack of details on the killer. Who is this man? There are no monologues. There is no explanation about his motives or motivations. He simply is a killing machine, but one wonders if there is something brimming beneath the surface and what made him turn so evil. In many ways, the unrelenting violence and need to kill reminded this reviewer of The Terrifier and Art the Clown’s unexplainable lust for mayhem. Perhaps it’s more unsettling not knowing the full extent of what’s going on.
Tailgate, out now on DVD, is a perfect morsel of a film for those people looking for energy and scary thrills, minus any subtext or exposition. Crijns has crafted a taut and terrifying tale of a family coming undone because of a man who refuses to let them go.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Tailgate (2019). In English and Dutch with English subtitles. Written and directed by Lodewijk Crijns. Starring Jeroen Spitzenberger and Anniek Pheifer. Running time: 86 minutes. Rating: 
