Southbound (2016)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Im a sucker for short horror stories and southbound has 5 of them. Long story short, the stories dont make sense and have little to no connection. There is no context, what you see is what you get. I thought the second story with the driver was really really good and i would love to see a full movie of this, the other stories were meh to ok at best. Without the second story i would have rated this 4 stars.

Films like "Southbound" make me mad. Seriously mad, even, because they enhance the dreadful misconception that horror movies nowadays don't require a good script or a coherent plot if there's a cool gimmick (in this case interlacing segments) and lots of gory special effects. What makes these so-called writers and directors (including the collective "Radio Silence" or whatever they call themselves) think they are permitted to just put together a bunch of semi-processed ideas and underdeveloped storylines, but then sell it as a brimful anthology? I'll be the first to admit that the concept of "Southbound" demonstrates a lot of potential, but every segment feels incomplete and raises multiple questions rather than providing thrills and entertainment. In the first segment: what the heck are these skeletal creatures supposed to be and why are these two blokes trapped in a sort of time warp? During the second chapter: what ever happened to the fourth girl the others keep referring to? Who are their assailants and what drives them? One girl escapes, but what's the fate of the other two? The third segment is the most satisfying, but still: why is the hospital abandoned and who are the voices on the phone? Segment four is the most frustrating of them all and I can't even begin to describe what the purpose of this tale is. The final story is a prelude to the first but doesn't clarify anything. We still don't know about the background of these people and we're still guessing what the skeletal creatures are. For some incomprehensible reason, "Southbound" has quite a large fan-base and surely the geeks love to endlessly debate about alternate dimension theories, hidden clues, suggestive backgrounds, etc... This isn't cinema in the league of David Lynch; - it's only a mediocre and overly pretentious horror anthology. I would normally give a rating 4 or even 5, because the special effects are admirably gruesome and there certainly are a handful of atmospherically tense moments, but the lack of screenplay is so infuriating that I stick to the minimum rating. Consider it a statement.

I found this one a watchable modern horror anthology. The stories are intertwined or blended well - one story seamlessly blends into the next and I liked that about the film. The short stories are pretty good, not bad at all but some of them really didn't grab me. Most all of special effects are fine. Most of the acting was alright - some really good for a film of this type. I liked the film fine - it isn't anything special, nothing about it stood out to me to make me want to watch it again but it is fine for a one time watch. 6/10

SPOILER: Two guys in a truck are escaping from something. They end up at a gas station/diner/motel. When they try to leave they end up at the same place over and over. Finally they stop and one guys is butchered by the thing that has been following them. The other guy goes back to the motel where he starts hearing and seeing his daughter and encounters the thing.In a different room at the motel three girls from a band leave and end up with a flat tire somewhere and without a spare. A friendly old-fashioned couple gives them a lift. During dinner another couple comes over with their twin sons. Two of the girls eat some nasty looking meat dish, the third girl is a vegetarian. Later the two end up vomiting some black stuff and late at night simply walk outside in the dark. The other girl follows them and sees them joining some ceremony. All the others are in robes and chanting. At some point they discover her and chase her as she runs to the street.And is hit by a car. The driver calls 911 but doesn't know where he is or where he is going. He decides to drive to a city nearby, goes into a hospital, which is completely empty. The dispatcher, EMT, and now a doctor are on the phone and guiding him. He's told to intubate the girl by hand, and then manually to compress her lung. He does so and eventually he allowed to leave.Nearby a woman is on the phone, I think she may have been one of the people talking to the guy. She goes into a bar where later a guy with a shotgun breaks in and asks if anyone has seen his missing daughter. After several scuffles, the guy at the bar takes him to a tattoo parlor where the daughter works. Against her will, the brother takes her with him and they drive away, but where to? The brother faces a nasty while the girl drives back and goes into a restroom.From it a girl exits and joins her family eating. They go to a vacation house where soon enough 3 masked guys appear. The break into the house and grab the couple. The daughter hid and is safe. By accident they end up killing the couple, and attack the daughter, but now things turn very surprising. Among the surprises, two of the masked guys are the guys from the beginning in the truck.Southbound presents these interesting and creepy stories. Each story poses more questions than it answers. And in this case it worked. Others here on the boards have come up with excellent explanations. Perhaps one problem with Southbound is that it didn't intrigue me enough to try and come up with answers. I was perfectly content with not knowing how it all comes together, or whether it does, but apparently it does. So a lot of thought went into these scripts but not enough clues were offered to the audience or it wasn't made clear that they were clues. In any case, I enjoyed Southbound. It's a different, original, interesting movie that sets quite an atmosphere. I found the creature thing to be very neat and different, as well. The cast was mostly unknown to me but Nathalie Love and Hassie Harrison are just lovely.