Director: D.C. Hamilton
Writer: Brinna Kelly
Stars: Gino Anthony Pesi, Brinna Kelly, Jason Stuart
1 Hour 22 Minutes
Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7293920/
Synopsis
We seem to be in a black-and-white world, as a cab drives through the desert. The cab driver is listening to the radio and goes past a show where they are talking about time-traveling aliens that messed with the nature of reality. Maybe it was a sci-fi show, or maybe it wasn’t.
He’s got a fare to pick up out in the desert. He’s Harris, and she’s Penny. They talk about various things: she teaches people how to be strippers, and he talks about comic books. They flirt with each other and then drive into a thunderstorm. There’s a flash of lightning, and Penny is gone; she’s vanished. He calls it in to the dispatcher and then looks at the meter.
We hear about the time-traveling aliens on the radio again. He has gone back to the point before he picked up Penny. He stops and picks up Penny again. He doesn’t seem to remember any of it, but it’s just like the first time except a little different.
They hit something and they’re suddenly in color, and he remembers her name, even though she hasn’t told him that yet. “I didn’t tell you my name this time,” she says. “Remember me this time,” she begs. Then she vanishes. He flips the meter, and time resets again back to black and white.
He stops to pick her up again, and we get flashes of color this time. When he remembers, we see color, with old stuff, it’s monochrome. They talk about what’s going on, and she says there have been at least a hundred repeats, and she remembers all of them. She vanishes, he resets.
This time, they both remember and skip the reruns. Penny explains that they’ve tried to go other places on previous trips, but the roads are always blocked and the same thing always happens eventually.
They repeat many more times, but now that they always remember, they get to know each other very well, with one long conversation after another between the resets. Eventually, Harris decides not to turn off the meter, which seems to be what causes the reset. Then things get really different…
Commentary
This is only marginally horror related at the end; it’s really more of a romantic fantasy, but it’s really good. There’s no blood or gore or violence, but there is a monster of sorts.
This is a concept that we’ve seen done everywhere from Groundhog Day to Star Trek to Happy Death Day. This film takes the same basic idea and does a lot of new things with it. Often times, when a show tries this basic storyline, I get bored by the third repeat, but this was different enough right away to keep my interest. Even after the repeating stops, it’s still interesting. Actually, it goes a direction I was completely not expecting, and I really like the explanation.
The two main actors are both excellent, the writing and direction are good, and everything looks good. Some of the exterior shots are a mixture of a real car and CGI, but it’s all good. Probably the best part is how it all ties together and gets explained in a satisfyingly manner. Again, it only sorta barely touches on a horror topic, but I still recommend it.
This film will be released on Blu-Ray and Video on Demand sites on November 19th, 2019