Alone

Alone
Starring Jules Willcox, Marc Menchaca, Anthony Heald, Jonathan Rosenthal
Directed by John Hyams

The lone survivor against a maniacal killer motif has been played out with countless films to its credit, but to me the best of them all is "The Hitcher," where a young man finds himself on the run from a killer on the open desert road.  It's got it all - suspense, action, shocking moments, fantastic cinematography, and dedicated performances.  "Alone," on the other hand, shows how this tried-and-true subgenre can follow all the rules like a classic paint-by-numbers coloring book - if it was colored in by a two-year-old.

Jessica (Jules Willcox) is getting over the loss of her husband by moving out of town to parts unknown. She packs up a day before her parents were supposed to help her, and drive off alone somewhere north of Oregon, driving against the magic endless wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.  Along the way she gets into a scuffle on the road with a fellow motorist, but this doesn't deter her from heading for her final destination, even after the Man (Marc Menchaca) in the car finds her at a local motel and tries to strike up an odd conversation.

As Jessica continues down the road, she continually comes into contact with the Man, until he finally seizes an opportunity and drugs and kidnaps her, taking her to an isolated cabin deep in the woods.  Jessica manages to escape, and a deadly cat-and-mouse game through the woods ensues.

"Alone" does have some good things going for it - the setting is absolutely merciless, as Jessica not only has to fend herself from the Man, but also nature itself - and offers little to no hope of outside rescue in a seemingly endless world of trees, rivers, and sharp objects.  The music is barely there, so there's no swelling of excitement that leads to an unnatural feel to it, but instead it's rather minimal so you feel like you're watching a re-creation of an actual abduction you'd see on shows like "Forensic Files."  Jules Willcox gives a strong performance as Jessica who, despite enduring the suicide of her husband weeks earlier, finds the inner strength to fight back.

Other than that, the film is a total bore.  At a scant 98 minutes, it feels more than double that as the film meanders meaninglessly through the traditional cat-and-mouse genre: run, hide, get found, run, hide, get found, and so on, and so on.  It's not necessarily terrible, but the film began with a lot of promise but slowly sank any promising moments with the most insane plotholes.

The biggest plothole is the fact that the Man continually found Jessica on the road, and then again when Jessica gets free and roams the wilderness alone.  It's like she has a homing beacon on herself that draws the Man to her wherever she goes, and in a literal needle-in-a-haystack film, it's infuriating that the Man continually finds her so easily.

The Man himself is the most laughable villain I've seen in a long time.  Marc Menchaca looks like an odd combination of a real-life Ned Flanders, Will Ferrell, and Jason Sudeikis with a glued-on mustache.  He never gives off a coherently intellectual strategy for anything, and tries to wax philosophical but instead gives a laugh-out-loud monologue.  Then there's Anthony Heald (Dr. Chilton from "The Silence of the Lambs"), who plays Jessica's possible savior who...well...you can guess what happens to him, and this too is laugh-out-loud stupidity.

Offering nothing new to the subgenre and being as forgettable as you'd imagine, "Alone" isn't terribly bad or good, but one of those films you shrug your shoulders and say, "well, that's a way to kill some time."

The Score: C-