Although I saw this film on television and sat through it in its entirety, I feel this is a vampire story of limited worth. If you like vampire movies and decide to see the film, be forewarned that it has many problems that will keep your interest wavering. First, there is the mediocre acting delivered by the mother and daughter protagonists, who never rise above clichés. The two are dysfunctional in a tawdry, uninspired way (No, you can't go to that rock concert. Why not????? Because I'm your mother and I said so!!! I hate you!!) that left me hoping their SUV would careen off a cliff in a dramatic Thelma and Louise finale, and after I was only 10 minutes into the film. Yet, inexplicably, they are given far too much screen time to allow for the development of scenes that might otherwise have proved diverting or gripping. Second, the screenplay lacks verve or ingenuity. It doesn't help matters that the screenwriter was sufficiently enamored of his script to have characters repeating lines as if they were memorable and profound truths. Far more problematic is the lack of cohesion and the absence of any thematic development in his script. He fails to develop an interesting and compelling rapport between mother and daughter (as mentioned above), a terrible blunder that weakened the story. Additionally, there are enormous holes in this story that will have discerning viewers feeling impatient and cheated. We are never given enough information to understand how the vampires work nor what their motivations might have been in choosing our boring little Nat as their next victim. Nor do we understand how it is that the head vampire, from all appearances the kind of high-school degenerate who might turn tricks for drugs, knows that the amphetamine-popping mother attempted a self-induced abortion years ago to rid herself of her surprisingly tenacious, now fully-grown and leggy, but limp, daughter. Third, there is the problem of films set in America but filmed elsewhere that lack a truly American film (think Eyes Wide Shut.) Everything about this film looks as if it were filmed on a desolate tundra plain. The truck-stops look decidedly foreign, the stretch of roadways don't look like American freeways and, worse yet, the extras don't look American. Finally, there is an irritating film score that had me feeling nauseated.
Review of Octane
