Hush Review

Brutal efficiency drives Mark Tonderai's debut Hush, a film which puts its foot down and aims for somewhere half-way between Spielberg's Duel and Eden Lake. A chase movie, a road movie, a contemporary psychological thriller and an example of stripped down modern horror, it's an attempt to address that most topical of moral dilemmas: when confronted with someone else's nightmare, do you wade on in or walk on by?

Aspiring writer Zakes (William Ash) and his girlfriend Beth (Christine Bottomley) are driving down the rain-lashed M1 towards Manchester, bickering over the state of their relationship. Fleetingly the rear panel of a truck in front of them slides open and Zakes thinks he sees a naked woman chained up in a cage. They call the police, but Zakes can't read the truck's number plate - and is he really sure about what he saw?

As the couple deliberate over what they should do, the bickering escalates into a full blown domestic. At the next motorway service station Beth brings their relationship to an end and decides to make her own way home. But something about the manner of Beth's departure rings an alarm bell with Zakes, and within an hour of spotting that mysterious woman on the motorway he is plunged into a vicious and relentless pursuit during which the line between hunter and hunted becomes blurred, and then vanishes altogether. Not getting involved would clearly have been the safest option, but for Zakes the stakes become horribly personal.