Movies
[Mile High Horror ’15 Review] ‘Night Fare’ Crumbles Under Own Seriousness
“There are no deadlines that never come due, no debts ever paid.”
This is the mantra exhibited on a small sign in the back of the taxi driver’s car in Night Fare. This silent, tattooed hulk of a driver cruises the Parisian streets at night like some wandering samurai on a mission. One night he picks up old friends Chris (Jonathan Howard) and Luc (Jonathan Demurger), a small time drug pusher who decides to skip out on the fare. The driver doesn’t let them off so easy, stalking the friends in his muscle car taxi of death through the vacant streets.
Man, this premise sounds ripe for excitement. It’s like Duel only this time Jason Voorhees is driving the truck. Shortly into the film, writer/director Julien Seri starts toying with our expectations and it’s gradually revealed that the Driver (Jess Liaudin) might not be the villain we thought he was. He saves a dog from its abusive owner and spares the life of an honest cop. Sounds like a nice enough guy, right? Then why is he relentlessly hunting Chris and Luc down? What demons are they hiding?
This secret is also at the heart of why Chris vanished for two years, leaving behind his girlfriend Ludivine (Fanny Valette), who has since started shacking up with Luc. Since resurfacing, there’s nothing but tension in this love triangle and as Chris and Luc run from their disturbing secret, the Driver is right at their heels. This romantic turmoil subplot never has the emotional impact it should though and feels like an afterthought in many scenes.
All of the ingredients are there for one badass genre pulp and a dramatic look at past sin and retribution. The first two/thirds of the film are wicked entertaining and a lot of fun. There’s a brutal one-take brawl between Chris and Luc that looks so goddamn real it hurts. The pulsing synth score from Alex Cortés adds a sense of menace to the stalking scenes and cinematographer Jacques Ballard’s neon/darkness contrast has a slick, Michael Mann feel to it. A very nice touch is the ticking of the taxi’s meter used as a scene transition – a visual reminder of Chris and Luc’s rising debt.
The problem comes in the third act, when Night Fare begins to take itself painfully seriously and humorless. All the fun and excitement is drained out of the film as hefty moralization and a left-field mythological twist take center stage. This twist is certain to be a point of contention for audiences and for me it simply didn’t work. Up to this point the film is impressively conceived and razor sharp, but it just falls apart under the weight of its own moralistic ambitions. There’s a cool animation sequence alá Kill Bill, sure, but it can’t save Night Fare from completely coming undone at the end. It feels like a wasted opportunity. It had the chance to be an engaging, edgy genre film but instead wants to moralize and deliver an uninteresting samurai mythology. Night Fare isn’t strong enough to be either.
That being said, Night Fare won “Best Feature Film” at the Mile High Horror Film Festival, so what do I know.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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