By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Madison Wolfe, Brec Bassinger and Ali Larter
Directed by Warren Skeels
Written by Warren Skeels and Sharon Y. Cobb
Relativity Media
The vehicle that has become synonymous with serial killers and child predators receives its own screen showcase with THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN. Though it’s said to be based on the mid-to-late-’70s spree of Billy Mansfield Jr., the film is loosely inspired at best by his case (the dangerous-van trope was encouraged more by his contemporaries, “Toolbox Killers” Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris). In fact, writer/director Warren Skeels and co-scripter Sharon Y. Cobb seem especially influenced, in setting and other details, by John Carpenter’s original HALLOWEEN, with a side order of Steven Spielberg’s DUEL.
The setting is Brooksville, Florida in the leadup to All Hallows’ Eve 1975, and our heroine is 15-year-old Annie Williams (THE CONJURING 2’s Madison Wolfe). Hers is a family governed by tradition and religion and the associated ideas of how one is supposed to be “a young lady”; her older sister Margaret (Brec Bassinger, soon to be seen as the star of FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES) is described as a “rising debutante.” It’s an era when the question of Margaret getting her own phone extension is a big deal, and Annie escapes the strictures of her home life by riding her beloved horse Rebel. It is on one such jaunt that she first notices an ominous white van whose unseen occupant appears to be fixated on her; just like Laurie Strode, she will later see it parked outside her school, and spy its driver lurking in her backyard from her bedroom window.
One of Skeels’ key ideas here is that Annie is being stalked at a time when stalking, and serial killers, had yet to become part of the common public discourse. Margaret and their parents Helen and Richard (Ali Larter and Sean Astin, who were both among the movie’s dozen executive producers) don’t believe Annie’s claims that a bad man and his van are shadowing her; her prior penchant for telling tall tales doesn’t help. This is a safe little community whose residents put their trust in God to protect them–a notion the movie too-briefly addresses. We know, of course, that Annie is in imminent danger, especially as Skeels drops in flashbacks to the murderer’s exploits in prior years.
THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN’s theatrical release has the unfortunate timing to come soon after the Netflix debut of WOMAN OF THE HOUR, which also charts a woman’s collision course with a serial slayer while jumping back in time to witness his past deadly interactions with others. Those scenes in that movie helped illuminate his character; Skeels, not wanting to glorify or celebrate his villain in any way, keeps him a shadowy, faceless presence throughout MAN IN THE WHITE VAN. As a result, however, the glimpses of the driver’s past crimes have only momentary impact–which Skeels tries to amp up, as he does during both real and fake jump-scares elsewhere in the movie, with aggressively loud musical stingers.
THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN succeeds better as a portrait of a girl under both pressure at home and the threat of impending violence from outside that she’s powerless to stop, and Wolfe brings a good deal of sympathy and feeling to Annie. She and her co-leads share a warm yet fractious family chemistry, and Skeels and cinematographer Gareth Paul Cox nicely capture the suburban/rural milieu. There are occasional fun, eccentric details–this is the first movie I’ve ever seen where two girls ride horses to a Halloween party–and the period flavor gets a boost via a few well-selected needle-drops. In particular, Skeels effectively turns The Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” into a creepy stalker anthem.
This occurs during the lengthy final act, during which the van man stops threateningly teasing Annie and directly sets off after her, demonstrating a bit of Michael Myers’ imperviousness to damage that would put down and keep down an ordinary human. The climactic action is confidently staged and delivers some pulse-pounding moments, though the way it wraps up is none too surprising. Then again, with its teen heroine and its mayhem kept to PG-13 levels, THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN seems aimed at younger audiences more familiar with the recent explosion of true-life serial-killer TV than the fictional fright films it borrows from.
