Reviews

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  ★★★½ review by bree1981 on Letterboxd

  Glasgow Frightfest 2016 Film # 8

  A strange anthology horror featuring four separate tales by four directors all involving seemingly unrelated stories of desperate soul's travelling down a deserted stretch of highway.
  
  The film open's, then comes full circle and close's with what to me was the weakest segment, The Way In and The Way Out directed by the group of filmmakers know as Radio Silence was a fairly baffling story that isn't really made any clearer by the end segment. The one thing it get's right is the cool looking, skeletal monster's/alien's which appear to be stalking the main characters.
  
  The middle two segment's are the film's strongest, first we have Siren by Roxanne Benjamin, featuring the best cast of all the stories, it's the tale of three girls in a garage rock band who are on their way to a gig when their van breaks down, accepting a lift from a seemingly nice couple, their night however, soon turns into nightmare when they get back to the couples isolated home. This segment immediately bleeds into the next, David Bruckner's The Accident is easily the goriest of the four story's, a man on his way home to his wife hit's a young girl in the middle of nowhere but when he phone's 911 someone takes the chance to play a twisted game with him that takes advantage of his obvious panic.
  
  The final segment is another really strange one, Patrick Horvath's Jailbreak is the story of a guy looking to save his sister from a town full of vampire type creatures, the only problem being his sister doesn't want to be saved and isn't happy to see him. The film then goes full circle and tries to shine some clarity on the first story but I still didn't get it.
  
  Overall, as with most of these type's of film's this is a bit hit or miss but I think the middle two segments are strong enough to make this worthwhile checking out.

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  ★★★½ review by Daniel Rodriguez on Letterboxd

  Finally! A 2016 horror movie worth praising, YEAH!

  Southbound is something like an heirr to the VHS legacy. It reunites most of the team from that movie in a new anthology, which replaces de VHS theme for a highway-to-hell one.

  As it happens with pretty much every anthology movie ever, Southbound has its inconsistences. Some segments are just not as interesting as others. The best one by far is The Accident, which is dark and twisted, and the weakest one is the rescue, but just because it only shows glimpses of a very interesting world, without ever doing anything remarkable with it. What I liked the most about this movie is how it features a truly evil force, one that offers a real sense of danger and urgency because there's no easy getaway.

  First Rating: 4.0
  
  Last Rating: 3.5

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  ★★★½ review by Hollie Horror on Letterboxd

  Southbound is a rather interesting horror anthology with interweaving stories, at the end of a segment one of the characters passes the segment torch to a new character and the audience is smoothly carried along into a new segment, with the wraparound acting only as bookends to the entire anthology, instead of having a segment in between each act.

  Interestingly, Roxanne Benjamin, a producer on V/H/S, stepped into the role of director in Southbound with a segment following an all-girl band who are stranded on a long stretch of highway, I hate that it's even noteworthy that a woman participated in a horror anthology but it's still a rare occurrence and her segment was second best, so right on!

  I was not at all surprised to learn that my favorite segment was directed by David Bruckner who actually directed one of my favorite segments in V/H/S (Amateur Night) and was one of three directors on the 2007 film, The Signal. His segment was tense yet funny, had the best acting with a performance by Mather Zickel as he tries to save a woman he hit with his car, and the segment also had quality gore, it was the true standout of Southbound, although the entire anthology was a fast-paced, easy watch.

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  ★★★★ review by Helen_S on Letterboxd

  At first I was thinking this looks a load of blah. But then it became unbelievably tense, my heart was pounding out of my mouth. Loved how it all came together and the ending made me cheesy grin.

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  ★★★½ review by Nexkez6 on Letterboxd

  ”For all you lost souls racing down that long road to redemption.”

  Hell awaits at the end of an inescapable, desolate highway for those on the run from personal demons of past transgressions and demons of the literal variety, in a horror anthology whose tales seamlessly flow from one to another within its shared desert landscape.
  
  Tales that aren’t necessarily unique but each is well executed before the finale expectedly circles back on itself. Stories that involve the warping of time and space, lingering and deadly winged skeletal demons, the search for a long lost loved one, murderous home invasion, rituals from a cult who like their old ways and my favourite midway segment of a road accident which leads to terrifying consequences in an abandoned hospital when the only help is a voice on the end of a 911 call.
  
  There are some great splatter effects and bit of so-so cgi, the synth score nicely adds to the eerie atmosphere and not having each story overexplain itself is a bonus that will create re-watch value. An anthology horror that really does the concept justice. Recommended.

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