It seems it would be easy to do a film about the urban legend where a driver picks up a woman in white who turns out to be a ghost. We are all familiar with this story, though the details of the urban tale can vary from one storyteller to the next, and it really seems like something so straightforward that it would be hard to make a mess of it. I at least thought so until I watched Black Cab. The film at first glance just seemed like something in my wheelhouse that couldn’t go wrong; it was a ghost story starring Nick Frost, whom I’ve been a fan of since first seeing him in Shaun of the Dead and Spaced, but despite how likeable he is, there is just nothing much that could have saved this movie, which was mostly dead on arrival. Anne (Synnove Karlsen) and Patrick (Luke Norris) are a recently engaged couple. After a night of celebration turns sour, they attempt to take a cab ride home, but instead their night is about to go from bad to worse as they discover their driver is a bit unhinged. As for their cab driver, Ian (Nick Frost), his plans for the couple remain ambiguous for a good portion of the film, but it is safe to say from the start that he is up to no good. The start of the film isn’t necessarily bad, but it gets off on the wrong foot, because while this couple is supposed to be celebrating their recent engagement, Anne is clearly miserable about this announcement, and we quickly find out that Patrick has a history of abuse and that Anne is pregnant. Right from the start it is hard to believe the scenario that sets up the story, and it isn’t even introducing the paranormal elements yet.
As Ian is on his way to drop off the unhappy couple, we start to see his unhinged behavior, and before we know it he’s using a cattle prod on Patrick and kidnapping the couple while occasionally pulling aside to make some phone calls. It’s while inside the car Anne starts to see the woman in white … As for an explanation behind the lady in white and why she’s haunting the black cab, we have to wait till the third act to get these answers, and by then I was well past checking out on this film and was ready for it to be over. Sadly the third act is the best part of this film, but it is still riddled with flaws and contrivances that can’t save this film.
The biggest problem with this film is that it would have worked as a short film if it was just under 30 minutes, but what they did was stuff this with nonsense filler to make this a full-length film. It’s one thing to have a flawed couple in a relationship, but there is just zero chemistry with the characters, and really it seemed pointless to even have Patrick in the car. Then there is Anne; she couldn’t be more passive as a heroine. I mean, she does very little to attempt to save herself, to the point I simply didn’t care what happened to her. As for Ian … I feel like Frost was doing his best to salvage this character, but it’s as though they were making things up as they went along. When we find out what his motivation is for the kidnapping we can understand why he does what he does, but the problem is how we’ve seen him behave in the previous hour of the film isn’t consistent with that.
Then there is the direction of the film … director Bruce Goodison I feel just isn’t a good fit at all for the horror genre. This is supposed to be a thriller and a ghost story, but it fails to thrill or even manage a cheap jump scare. As a fan of the genre, I’ve sat through some stinkers in my time, but this one was just an unpleasant experience all around. This just seemed like a film they did to collect a paycheck and didn’t care at all what an audience might feel about it. I’m surprised Shudder picked this one up, when they’ve been pretty good with their acquisitions lately. Perhaps they were banking on fans of Nick Frost to help it with views to make up for whatever they spent on the film, but whatever they spent, it was too much. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this film, but when I look back at the caliber of horror films we’ve had lately, Black Cab just seems like an underachiever that I wish I had stopped watching before the credits rolled.
Black Cab is streaming now exclusively on Shudder.
