Trucker is an action/horror flick from 2024. I guess it really has most in common with a straight up slasher. There is a masked killer, some teenagers being killed in gruesome ways and there’s a revenge motif. That’s pretty much a slasher right? But that’s not all it is. There’s none of the usual knives, axes and machetes. As the title suggested there’s more cars or trucks involved. Of course I over simplify it a little bit. But actually not by much.
But let’s start from the beginning, with what leads up to the killing spree. First of all there’s a teaser in the movie, a guy walking down the road with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He is of course stopped by the police but when he’s being questioned he just reverts back to one word “Trucker”. That suggested a really traumatic experience don’t you think? In other words, nice circumstances.
We then get thrown back in time to see what really happened to cause this killing spree. A classic way to tell a story, nothing fancy but something stable to lay the foundation on. I must say that what goes down doesn’t render any likable characters at all for me. I think the teenangers kind of get what they deserve. There’s no likable characters and really no motivation for what is happening either. Of course, I can understand the revenge on the youngsters responsible for the death of the truckers family (even if they don’t know it). And I can also understand that they were too scared at the time to take responsibility for their actions. But somehow it falls kind of flat anyway.
There are also side characters where the motivation is way more confusing. It might be a way to metaphorically state the obvious, that you must face the consequences of your actions. But I don’t think Trucker is a movie deep enough for that. But who knows.
What I immediately notice is the grindhouse kind of feel. It’s not really scary and it’s not really made in a serious way. It’s over-the-top, quite bad directing and questionable acting. There are cliches upon cliches upon cliches in the story and how it’s told. It’s cool in one way but also rather annoying. In a way it’s a caricature of what a typical movie like this could look like. But it’s not made with enough humor to be a parody which makes me believe that it’s actually an homage of some kind. That would work in a way I think. It’s still a little too stereotypical for my taste but on the other hand, I must admit that I was pretty amused and entertained by it. It was a fun movie that didn’t take itself too seriously.
The effects are good and the killer’s mask is cool and suits the story very well. As the story continues a bit after the end credit there might even be an opening for a sequel of some kind. Let’s see what might happen.
