As the massive box office success of A Quiet Place and its sequel showed, audiences are happy to turn up in their numbers to watch Emily Blunt headline a horror movie. However, the actress wasn’t quite the star she is now back when Wind Chill released in mid-2007, not that the supernatural spooker managed to score much of a theatrical release at all.
Rolled out largely on VOD, Gregory Jacobs’ frostbitten tale of nighttime apparitions mustered a mere $285,000 at the box office, although it holds a place in modern cinematic history for being the first time Blunt ever took top billing in a feature film. Everyone has to start somewhere, and in a weird stroke of coincidence, for future A-listers it often happens to be in B-tier horror.
Two unknown college students (literally credited as Girl and Guy) are traveling home on the lonely roads the day before Christmas Eve. Doing what everyone in the genre does, they opt to take a shortcut in order to reach their destination ahead of schedule, only to end up being run off the road and trapped in the icy wilderness.
Not just any icy wilderness, though, but a pocket of reality where otherworldly shenanigans are very real, and a crime that occurred in 1953 is poised to happen all over again. A time traveling mystery with ghostly elements and a talented star in the lead sounds enticing, but a 46 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and 31 percent user rating tells a different story.
Undeterred by its reception, HBO Max subscribers have determined 15 years later that Wind Chill is worthy of their time. As per FlixPatrol, the forgotten footnote in Blunt’s filmography is a Top 10 hit on the platform in 20 countries, but we’ve got the sneaking suspicion it won’t be for long.
Published: Jul 25, 2022 11:26 am