MovieChat Forums > Southbound (2016) Discussion > The title says it all. "Southbound"

The title says it all. "Southbound"


The title says it all. "Southbound"... meaning, headed to hell. The characters are in purgatory, and the creatures coming after them are demons. The characters who continue to be immoral, are punished, or killed- by the demons- and presumably, sent to hell. Interestingly, the films characters all seem to be 10 square miles in the middle of nowhere west America. The film does manage to have smooth transitions between the accounts though. It's not that complicated. In fact, it had the potential to much more complex. It had the potential- to be, a better film. But, I digress; as it did have its moments. I found the hospital scene to be entertaining. The view from inside "Sadie"'s body; the shot of the lung being "compressed". I actually gagged when the one male character had to stick his hand down her throat. But, in retrospect, the film was just underwhelming. I had to push myself to finish it.

6/10. 6.4 to be exact. Overall, it somewhat failed in what it was trying to do. The whole hitchhike, weird family bit. It was pretty bad.

Now, if you haven't seen V/H/S and V/H/S 2, I recommend doing so. They do an overall better job with the horror 'anthology' genre.

For a more complex, non-anthology horror film, my latest recommendation is Session 9 (2001). Got the chance to watch that a few weeks ago and I still think about the small details. Very underrated. Very disturbing. I put it right up there with The Ring, another favorite of mine. Truly creepy.

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agreed 100%

I loved the first VHS (just the first one) and knew Southbound was from the same creators, which is what made me check this out. Slightly disappointing, and the acting from the punk rocker girls was astoundingly bad. Like...they went out of their way to act this badly, and I have no idea why. I was ready to call it quits and shut the movie off right up until the guy hits the girl with his car. It's like the movie knew they were losing me and decided to go with a gross out tactic.

"Oh you don't like it? Try to sit through this broken bleeding girl with her leg falling off".

Too little substance to really appreciate. If this was made before VHS, I would say hey they have potential to make something great. But they went backwards on this one

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Yea.. definitely went backwards. it isn't a first person POV/ found footage horror film- like VHS. And in retrospect- they really used that whole found footage angle to its advantage. It's a shame the 3rd one was so bad. I've heard too much hate for it to even check it out. But the 2nd one was definitely impressive.

So, southbound just has the usual 3rd person POV - so it's less believable. Some of the camerawork was cool- but it was just - less effective compared to VHS. Monsters looked ok- but the cgi was obvious. The setting had potential - and probably would have went much better if they took a found footage angle like "the girl rock band is filming a roc-doc (documentary)- and made the hitchhiking family more Realistic. The whole black food thing was stupid.

Like you said- not much substance here. But hey- an interesting piece of indie cinema that one take plenty of knowledge from (watching from the sidelines at least).

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