Released on the eve of April Fools' Day, the horror film “The Route Built” is a fully competent domestic genre project that is in no way inferior to Western Category B horror films staged by someone like Jason Bloom.
At a good level
The new horror of Oleg Asadulin is not the debut work of the director in the mystical genre. On his account there are quite successful television films "The Ship" and "Closed School". The director has experience of successful cooperation with leading Russian movie stars: Victoria Isakova, Andrei Merzlikin and Vladimir Menshov, which today is an exceptional quality mark in the modern film industry. Therefore, high quality was expected in advance from his new brainchild - and in general, as the reviews on the film “The Route Is Built” say, the director did not drop the brand. The producers of the tape, having correctly assessed the growth in demand and popularity in the Russian Federation for the genre of “mysticism and thriller”, approved a rather high (for domestic cinema) budget of 1,000,000 rubles. And they did not fail, the genre project won a devoted and wide audience, which acts as a guarantee of the return on their investment. According to IMDb, the rating of the tape is low - 4.60, but its expectation is impressive -73%. Reviews of the film "Route Built", released by domestic film critics, are mostly positive.
Horror about the value of the family
Naturally, at the mention of “bad cars”, the true fan of the genre comes to mind first of all the tapes that are considered to be classics by right - “Christina” by John Carpenter and “Maximum Acceleration”, set by Stephen King. However, the “Route Built” movie reviews define a movie of a slightly different plan. In it, of course, there are steering wheels and pedals that do not obey the driver, pressing on their own, but, in general, this story is not about tricks of otherworldly entities, not about a spirit-obsessed car, but about people. All the rest of the devilry only deepens and widens the gap in the relationship between Olga and Andrei, the married couple, which inevitably dragged the family into a bottomless abyss.
By all the signs of the genre
Nevertheless, Asadulin’s picture is a mystical horror in its entirety, all the main genre components in it are in place and implemented quite confidently, as the leading domestic film makers say, leaving reviews of the film “The Route Is Built”. Heroes suffer from obsessive hallucinations, frightening tapping periodically sounds in the trunk, a country road leads in circles through the wilderness - in principle, nothing innovative, something that fans of the genre have not seen before. Of course, they saw it, but not with Russian performers who “do not swim,” but play brightly and strongly and not on Russian material. Therefore, in a particular case, the audience triggers the effect of “our dear”.
Plot. Caution Spoilers
The plot of the film “Route Built” is relatively secondary. The main characters are the married couple Andrei (Pavel Chinarev) and Olya (Svetlana Ustinova). They have been married for more than seven years, have a daughter, but their marriage cannot be called happy. The excessive emotionality and hysteria of Olga weary Andrei, and he found solace in the arms of another woman. The deception opened, Olga seemed to forgive the cheater, but she still had a sediment on her soul. In an attempt to revive the relationship, the characters go on a joint vacation, but first go to Yaroslavl to leave their daughter grandmother. Before the trip, Andrei manages to purchase a used car in good condition for a ridiculous price. The fact is that the car has a dark past. Its former owner killed his wife, dismembered the corpse and hid it in the trunk of the ill-fated car. Because of this, her spirit settled in the car and pretty wild. The crime was uncovered, the culprit was taken into custody, the body of the deceased was interred, the car was washed and put up for sale. But the vengeful ghost remained in her. He will not leave alone the new owners.
Not without creativity
It's no secret that modern horror films can be classified according to the creators' approach to the very process of forcing the atmosphere. Some inflate the voltage to the limit, while others actively use screamers, "bu-effects". Reviews of the film “Route Built” classify the project in the second category, but all sorts of frightening surprises in the tape are implemented quite competently, many times more professionally than in some foreign third-rate horror. The bu-moments in the horror movie of Oleg Asadulin appear with enviable constancy, so the beholder does not have time to prepare or relax.
The development of the plot action is quite frisky, although more often than others only one location is used - car space. The undoubted advantage of the horror is the creativity of the evil entity, which manifests itself very diverse. From annoying creaks and taps, the ghost goes on to play with a car radio and navigator, and after that switches to manipulating consciousness and objects - in general, the spirit brings a lot of horror to the heroes.
The virtues of horror
The actors of the film “Route Built”, according to the audience, are one of the advantages of the film. They convincingly played the roles of their characters. Andrei, performed by Pavel Chinarev, is a tough, stubborn, secretive and insensitive man. Olga, in whom Svetlana Ustinova reincarnated, is a hysterical, immensely irritable woman. They are at least not the prettiest couple, the spouses are close to the final break, too many claims and insults they have accumulated. It is difficult to empathize with such characters, but whatever the parents were, the unfortunate child did not deserve a meeting with a fierce ghost. For the horror, increased attention to the personality problems of the characters is not typical, but this clearly ennobles the film. Screenwriter Ivan Kapitonov and director Oleg Asadulin deliberately play with the dynamics of the relations of their heroes, which glow extremely quickly in the confined space of a car. At peak moments of intensity, when the series of nightmare events does not stop, the heroes lose their nerves, and the connection with reality becomes thinner, and they literally fly off the coils. The creative duet of leading actors here is very convincing.
disadvantages
All of the above does not mean that the film is perfect. Dialogues are oversaturated with "literature" that is not characteristic of contemporaries, annoying bloopers in the heroes' behavior periodically slip, and the final part is buried in blood flows and demonstrations of swarming worms. In addition, the third part of the audience after the views, according to the comments left, did not understand how the film “Route Built” ended.
The creators ventured to culminate upside down, giving an unpredictable twist. The idea deserves praise, but its implementation is lame. The final feint of spirit is generally useless and pointless for a scenario where it would be easier to standardly ditch all the characters, leaving a backlog for the sequel - the continuation of the film “The Route Built”. The full film by the standards of the domestic horror genre is one of the best at the moment, so its second part, most likely, was also commercially successful.