Black Cadillac (2003)

Three guys on a car journey in the frozen night sort out their homosexuality while pursued by a mysterious grunt motor.The IMDb ratings fooled me, so I have to take the pess. After 12 years people still praise this junk? First up - IT'S NOT A HORROR! Just a Hardy Boys melodrama, with a lame plot. I have a hard time understanding why people enjoy Christine - maybe it's a parochial American thing - but fair enough. But this story has no supernatural element at all, and can't even make sense of itself or its characters.Too tiresome to think much more about it. Put it this way - they introduce a character at the very end just to cover the plot hole that the car can't drive itself. And this poor innocent ends up ...Anyone voting this up is dumb.

The story in Black Cadillac concerns three male teens (two brothers and a friend) who get into a vicious fight at a seedy roadside bar. After managing to escape, they start the long drive home on a bitterly cold, snowy night, only to find themselves pursued by the menacing titular vehicle.The script cleverly alters and subverts our initial expectations of the three main characters: the older brother originally seems to be the sensible, heroic leader of the group, but is swiftly revealed to be an arrogant macho jerk. The wimpish, permanently whining younger brother unexpectedly displays courage and common sense, while the cocky, trouble-making friend ultimately turns out to be the most grounded of the trio.As a fan of films that merge the horror and road movie genres, I really enjoyed Black Cadillac, and it would make a great double bill with such similar-themed movies as The Car, Dead End, and Reeker. Although made on a low budget, it's an extremely slick and professionally-shot film, and boasts some quietly impressive stunt sequences, with a car chase on a frozen lake being especially worth mentioning.

Black Cadillac starts late one night in the isolated Wisconsin forests as three high-school friends Scott (Shane Johnson) his younger brother Robbie (Jason Dohring) & CJ (Josh Hammond) barely make it out of a roadside bar after a big fight, they get into their car & speed off. As they try to put a few miles between the bar & themselves they notice a sinister black Cadillac speeding up behind them, the Cadillac tailgates them & becomes aggressive. As the three friends try to reach the safety of their homes the black Cadillac keeps on coming after them, the Cadillac seems to be forcing the friends deeper into the isolated wilderness but for what purpose exactly?Directed by John Murlowski a caption after the opening credits informs us the audience that Black Cadillac was 'based on a true story', looking at the IMDb 'Trivia' section for Black Cadillac it seems the director Murlowski bases this on events from his own experience when a car chased him for several miles through backwoods roads. Unfortunately that is about as interesting as Black Cadillac gets & I would hardly call Black Cadillac based on a true story from that slim incident. Anyway, the script by Will Aldis starts off well enough with a fairly intriguing premise but the film quickly descends into total repetitiveness & goes nowhere very quickly. The main problem I had with Black Cadillac is that it sets up a potentially good story but then ruins everything with a truly awful & contrived ending that destroys everything that has gone before it. For the majority of Black Cadillac it felt very similar to Dead End (2003) & for that reason I genuinely thought that it was going to end with some sort of twist, you something that turns all the events upside down but Black Cadillac has a terrible ending where everything that has happened comes down to someone having an affair with someone else's wife. Truly the most lacklustre & routine ending the makers could have come up with which contradicts some of the more supernatural & mysterious elements from earlier in the film. Overall the film is very slow going, the character's are quite well fleshed out but it all amounts to nothing & feels more like padding once the film finishes. I really did think Black Cadillac was building up-to something good, boy was I wrong.Director Murlowski does alright, the film is competent but little else. There's not much style here & disappointingly Black Cadillac has a lowly body count of two both of whom die at the very end. There's no gore so forget about that. Overall Black Cadillac is maybe more of a thriller than a horror, there certainly isn't much on show that I would specifically class as out and out horror. There are one or two effective scenes but they count for little when the ending comes around. There also a few scenes which stretch a largely serious films credibility, in particular a scene when the Cadillac literally runs into someone & pins then against a wall yet later on this person manages to walk just fine & seems unharmed.Technically the film is fine, it's not going to win any awards but it's competent. The acting is alright, in fact it's not too bad at all. Despite top billing in the credits Randy Quaid isn't in it that much.Black Cadillac felt like a Dead End rip-off all the way until the disappointingly mundane ending which is just about the most lacklustre & dull way the makers could have finished the film. So, a largely slow moving film which basically leads up to absolutely nothing.

I purchased this DVD for $ 5.99 at our local video store thinking it would be a great filler for a rainy night. My curiosity got the better of me so I stuck the DVD into the machine. Five minutes into the movie I soon realized it was going to be good one. Even the three new actors caught my immediate attention and they kept the movie rolling very well. An interesting note about Black Cadillac is.. "It's totally believable ! " Guys can relate to our days of youth trying to get into bars underage looking for booze and ladies. And some of us can remember some of the many brawls that end-up out in the back of parking lots. Once the suspense started; it never let-up until the last 10 minutes when we finally realized who owned the Caddy and why they were stalking the boys. Once again, it brought back memories of a few old classics " DUEL " and "THE CAR." Both of which had top run actors and I seriously believe Black Cadillac was better then both. If you love old cars and you feel like watching a movie with a lot of suspense, then add Black Cadillac to your collection. You will not be disappointed !