Review: Ditched

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Ditched
Directed by Christopher Donaldson
Shadowbrook Pictures; Epic Pictures; Dread; MVD Entertainment
86 minutes, 2021 / 2022
www.facebook.com/ditchedmovie
www.MVDentertainment.com

Being under siege is an indirect subcategory genre, with the likes as varied as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976; apparently, according to the director, this film gets mentioned a lot in reference to this one) or even The Hills Have Eyes (1977; 2006). A small group is beset upon by people or things unknown, and need to violently fight back in kind, equaling the battlefield, bringing their own humanity into question. As one character says, “So whatever happens next, know this, whatever you have to do tonight, no matter how horrible, it’s for (your daughter).

For this film, in the middle a foggy night (‘natch), both an ambulance carrying a couple of criminals for a prison transfer and a cop car with another convict crash when their tires simultaneously blow. This happens even before the film begins, whose story starts moments after the crash (good budget saver!). They are in a ravine (hence the film’s title) in the woods north of Edmonton, Alberta. If you know the Province, there are some fun town namedrops, such as Lethbridge.

Lee Lopez, Marika Sila

Our main characters are broken into two groups at this point. The protagonist is paramedic Melina (Inuit actor Marika Sila), her cowardly co-paramedic Aiden (Lee Lopez), injured driver Jake (Declan O’Reilly), and surviving prattling criminal Derek Franson (Kris Loranger), who were in the ambulance. For the cop car participants, there are officers Richard Revesz (J. Lindsey Robinson) and Kerr (Lara Taillon), and convict Sideburns (Reamonn Joshee).

Slowly and very suspensefully, someone or something is picking them off. And it’s here it really gets interesting. It is already intense, but it kicks up quite a few notches from the second act onward, and rarely lets go.

The third group that starts off mysteriously, led by Caine (Mackenzie Gray), is more than they seem, pitting the first two groups against the third. You know it is not going to end well for most of them. The rules float back and forth, over who is the good guys and who are not.

This is a hard movie to review, because there is so much I want to say, and so much of it would give too much away. Speaking of which, I recommend not watching the trailer, which I have included, because it gives away way too much of the story. I am glad I went into this blind.

Sila, Declan O'Reilly

What makes this movie, for me, is how at the start of the second act, as reasons become clearer, it also muddies it up by turning the story on its head and giving it a whole different perspective while not losing its vision. The director nicely sets up two distinct camps and lets the viewer decide whose side they are on, and it is not always an easy choice. Some, like Franson and Sideburns are obvious choices, but everyone else are up for grabs.

The lighting of the film is standard primary colors, mostly red and blue with some green/yellow, but that makes sense as the ambulance and police car barlights are the main source of illumination in the dark and foggy ravine. The editing is swift without giving one whiplash, and then there is the gore, and lots of it. It looks really well made and, on occasion, looks nearly surgical, but oft-times it’s just the right amount for a gorehound (though not for a blood-phobic or newbie viewer). And all of the SFX are practical; I did not catch any digital effects (other than gunshots).

The extras include two versions of the trailer, the Official one (which gives away too much, as I stated), and the other is the Production version. There are also Dread Trailers for the films Val and Bad Candy, both of which I reviewed recently on this blog.

There is also a second version of the film called “Original Cut of Movie”; I was a bit peeved at that because I certainly am not going to watch them both right now, and I’m not sure what the differences are between them; some information on that would have been nice. Then there is the Director’s Commentary that is really worth the listen. Without getting too deep to the point of being academic, Donaldson discusses horror film philosophy, anecdotes about the making of the film, and dealing with extreme low budgets that compare vision with practicality (“It’s like trying to create the Mona Lisa with crayons”). He is engaging without just raving on.

While this is story-based, it is also filled to the brim with action that is nicely dispersed throughout the film, gaining speed and traction as the story plays on. This is the director’s first feature after a few episodes in a television series and a short, but it shows so much promise.

IMBD Listing HERE