Left Hand Drive (1993) User Reviews

chilling and nightmarish

[mombasa_pete · 10/10 · 14 January 2007]

This is a very chilling short moral tale, which commences as an apparent urban drama then turns seamlessly into a Faustian nightmare, with the emergence of the supernatural chilling in the way it gradually emerges.

Essentially, the driver of the car kills a homeless bozo in the car park, and decides to make off without reporting it, but as he attempts to leave the underground car park an endless series of wrong turns lead to him going deeper and deeper underground, and we see even the environment slowly changing around him and becoming more and more abnormal: wrecked, burning cars start appearing and the walls begin to close in.

the final terrifying scene ends with him coming to a dead end wall, and his car trapped.

Suddenly the words "on the left hand of god sits Satan" appear in glowing sulfur on the wall and he starts screaming: he is in Hell! The lights all go off and he is left in darkness, he tries flicking his lighter as he shivers in the darkness.

excellent horror short

[myriamlenys · 9/10 · 21 December 2022]

Based on a short story by Christopher Fowler, "Left hand drive" tells a tale about a nasty man meeting with an appropriately nasty fate. It's an excellent short : taut, intelligible, chilling and to-the-point. The story derives much of its power from the unease drivers feel when confronted with car parks and underground parking garages of all descriptions. Many of these buildings seem to have been designed not by human beings but by intelligent serpentoids from the planet Zipra XVII.

A few decades ago I learned about a new Brussels parking garage where some bright sparks had replaced most of the normal signs, such as "Turn right" or "Main exit", by modern art work. This meant that bemused drivers could stand there staring for ten minutes at a wave logo or at a stylized giant hand. I wonder how long this particular experiment lasted - not more than a few weeks, I'd guess...