One of my all time favorites.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A night drive through the South African bush turns into a deadly game of survival after a group of tourists find themselves being hunted by deadly poachers. Writer/director Justin Head relates the gripping story at a quick pace, maintains an unsparingly tough and gritty tone throughout, generates a considerable amount of nerve-wracking suspense, and makes nice use of the desolate bush locations. The solid acting by the capable cast keeps this picture humming: Christopher Beasley as disgraced cop Sean Darwin, Corine Du Toit as the depressed and suicidal Karen, Greg Melvill-Smith as rugged game warden Jack, Yule Masiteng as Jack's easygoing partner Akani, Brandon Auret as obnoxious antagonistic cokehead jerk Ian, Antonio David Lyons as the dashing Denzel, David Sherwood as kindly old gent Rodger Turner, Clare Marshall as Rodger's sweet wife Mary, and Matshepo Maleme as the feisty Tumi. The shocking moments of raw and gruesome violence pack a savage punch. Trevor Calverley's sharp cinematography provides an impressive slick look. Benjamin Willem's throbbing tribal score does the rousing trick. A neat'n'nasty little item.

Firstly, I'm reminded of my favorite now gone horror review site and a "rule" they mentioned sometimes - a horror movie shouldn't run over ninety minutes unless it has something special for audience members.Additionally, I'm reminded of the fifty movie pack I once bought, and some among those films share the habit of padding the film with a sequence that adds little to the movie. Night Drive's was worse - it rendered the central characters as unlikable.Apparently drugged people experience motion like a 1st-person Nintendo 64 shooter - their walking viewpoint looking like the perspective of someone sliding across the ground instead of walking.It's also kinda like the inverse of the haunted house film Dead Birds, where the crew mixed an atmospheric film with gory scenes, here its a character-driven splatter flick, which doesn't really work because the characters aren't that endearing. The elderly couple were probably the most charismatic characters and contributed little.Ultimately the film falls flat because the pieces, well, technically fit together, just not very well.

NIGHT DRIVE is one of two English language contributions to the horror genre from South African film makers and it was also refreshing to see a South African film that didn't revolve around Apartheid or racism and for the life of me I still don't know why there has to be so many films that are about Apartheid and racism, they're like a dozen remakes of one film about a subject that's been exploited up to a point where you need to tell script writers to find a new hobby.Anyway I really enjoyed NIGHT DRIVE, it was very much along the lines of WRONG TURN and a not so well known but very good horror movie called BORDERLAND that revolved around three young people taking a trip to Mexico and becoming potential victims of a cult sacrificing people in their rituals and its based on true events.However, like the negative comment on NIGHT DRIVE's IMDb web page stated this film is offensive, South African critics were divided in a way I never saw before but that is what a film of this genre has always done, there is also a golden rule a film maker needs to know, if you're afraid to offend people then don't make a film like this because that's exactly what it will do, this film will rub a few people the wrong way mainly because the plot revolves around poaching and black magic but what the film isn't is thin on plot, the characters are well developed even though they're not very likable some of the fates that befall most of the victims here are acts you wouldn't even wish on your worst enemy and that automatically makes you cheer for the protagonists, that's what this film does very well, it depicts killers that are just that evil.The acting is good all around, its not as plastic as in South Africa's favorite soap opera called 7DE LAAN, the cast here really do a good job with the material.Overall, fans of films like WRONG TURN and THE HILLS HAVE EYES should probably like this film, the gore effects are well done as well its not that digital crap its gore that's actually there and the acting is very good too and for a South African production it doesn't look cheap at all, it has great production values for a South African film.

South African cinema may have a long way to go before it can churn out movies as good as District 9 on a regular basis, but I'm happy to see them step away from movies about apartheid and racism and try something different once in awhile. While I've seen scarier movies than Night Drive, I did think it delivered the goods enough times to make it worthwhile. The writing and dialogue won't win any Oscars, but it never seemed to get tripped up with anything too obvious and contrived. It was a bloody slasher flick that knew when to be scary and when to give us a breather.The African bush offers a lot of potential for scary movies and I hope this is something filmmakers keep exploring. The juxtaposition of its daylight beauty with its nighttime dangers can take a good writer and director anywhere. Hopefully Night Drive is just a start with what can be done when filmmakers take advantage of what their own country offers them.