Tara's Car Trouble

Tara's Car Trouble

Bruce Von Stiers

One type of film that always finds a good audience is a crime drama. Especially if the film is a bit rough or edgy. That's how I would describe a film I just finished watching, little edgy.

The name of the film is Don't Get In The Car. It is a thriller with a touch of noir. The film is a feature, although it lasts just a couple of minutes over an hour. Many crime dramas from the 1930's through the 1950's often were about an hour long, so this being a shorter feature isn't a big deal.

The film opens with a woman sitting in a car at night, fixing her hair and makeup. She talks to her babysitter and then her daughter on the phone. Driving to work, she gets a phone call. There is a guy on the other end of the call, telling her that he has her daughter and the babysitter. He'll kill both unless she does something for him.

The woman is Tara, played by Jennimay Walker, who is known for horror films such as Psychophonia and Shevenge. The bad guy is Vince, played by Noel Gugliemi. From an early start, being seen in shows like The X-Files to a recurring role on Fresh Off The Boat to films like Furious 7, Noel has a whole bunch of screen credits. Vince has another guy with him, Nico. He is played by Mike Ferguson, who's been bad dudes in appearances in a lot of different films and television series.

Tara has only so many hours to find her sister, Leslie. She needs to retrieve something that Leslie stole and then kill her for Vince. But along the way to do that, Vince wants Tara to do a few things for him. These things include picking people up and taking them places. Basically, Vince has Tara being an Uber driver. Tara is driving around in an older Lincoln Continental with faded primer and suicide doors.

Tara first picks up two women. The women are Billie and Emma. They are hookers, part of Nico's stable. Tara pumps the two women about information on Leslie. She drops them off at their destination, a bachelor party and then picks up some other people. Billie is played by Camille Calvin and Emma Julia Jacobs is Emma.

The guys she picks up pull off a robbery and then two of the three guys get killed. Aaron Kai, Kurk Kasparian and Tony DeBenedetto play the three robbers.

As Tara goes through the night, picking up and dropping off people, each situation becomes more intense and scarier. There is an overdose, a self defense murder, a cop wanting to give Tara more than a ticket and a whole bunch of mayhem. Oh, and Tara shoots a couple of people. And she stabs a guy in the sequence of the self defense murder, which features actors Erik Aude, Richard Cardinal and Nakita Black.

Throughout all of the things that go on with Tara and the Lincoln, Vince is constantly calling, putting the pressure on her.

When Tara eventually connects with Leslie, nothing goes according to plan. That is, according to Vince's plan.

For each sequence of events, the only constants are Tara and Vince. The other characters float in and pretty much go out worse than when they got into the car.

Some of the actors in the various scenes were Nick W. Nicholson, Jack Bennett, Chad Christopher, Alex Urbom and Jenise Blanc. There was also Curt Lambert, Ivan Sharudo , Cienna Arigo and Cynthia Paredes.

The story for the film was by Lony Ruhman. He has written and produced several horror films. The screenplay was written by Clarice Paris and Staci Layne Wilson. I didn't find any information on Paris other than for this film. But Wilson has written, directed, and produced close to twenty films. And she is also a best-selling author.

In addition to co-writing the screenplay, Clarice Paris directed the film. And she played the sister, Leslie in the film as well. The director of photography was Michael Moghaddam. His previous work includes several short films, a few music videos and the recent feature Murder, Anyone? All the music in the film was handled by Jack Greco.

The film was produced by Jacob Rachinski, Noah Pillsbury, Cynthia Paredes and Kurt Kasparian. Executive producers were Danny Bellens, Tony DeBenedetto and Lony Ruhmann. The associate producer was Jennifer LaRousse.

Several of the actors filled in behind the camera roles as well, making this a tight knit production.

Don't Get In The Car is a little edgy and has a twist that makes it fit in with noir films as well. There is quite a bit of violence, but it isn't overly graphic. The story is solid, and the acting is pretty good. And the camera work, both inside and outside the car, is well done.

Don't Get In The Car hasn't had an official theatrical release date set yet. The film is being submitted to several film festivals at this point.

Back to the BVS Reviews Main Menu

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________