The Verdict
This is a Blumhouse Television genre thriller, Smith, and it knows exactly how lean it wants to be. A meek fast-food worker gets dragged on a violent road trip by an unhinged co-worker who snaps and kills their colleagues, and the whole film lives in that car.
Kyle Gallner anchors it as the menacing Benson and he is the reason it hums. The two-hander structure puts everything on the tension between captor and captive, and Gallner makes the threat feel one wrong word away from going off.
Released digitally via MGM+ to positive reviews, it is a tense, contained piece often grouped with horror-adjacent thrillers. A 62 is fair: it is sharp and well-acted, not reinventing the road-trip thriller.
What it nails
- ▲Kyle Gallner's menacing turn as Benson, the live wire the whole film hangs on.
- ▲A taut two-hander structure that wastes no time and no extra characters.
- ▲The contained road-trip premise generating tension from confinement alone.
- ▲A lean Blumhouse Television execution that knows its scale and plays to it.
What it botches
- ▼A genre identity caught between horror and thriller that never fully commits to either.
- ▼A digital MGM+ release that kept its tension trapped on the small screen.
- ▼A premise so contained it can feel slight next to bigger-swing horror of its year.
- ▼Leaning on Gallner so heavily that the film softens whenever he eases off the gas.
Who it's for
Fans of tense, character-driven two-handers, Kyle Gallner devotees, and anyone who wants a contained thriller they can finish in one sitting.
Who should skip
Viewers chasing supernatural scares or big set-pieces, since this is two men in a car and the horror is entirely human.
The whole story lives on the hub