Call us thrill-chasers with a soft spot for confinement, but there's something uniquely fun and electrifying about horror movies that trap you in one space. Sadly, we don't get enough good ones, which makes the rare standouts all the more memorable.
If Phone Booth (2002) left you entertained, with Colin Farrell trapped in glass under Kiefer Sutherland’s sadistic whispers, then ATM (2012) is the frosty, Christmas slasher cousin you need to meet, trading phone lines for the cold embrace of a cash machine. No, you can’t cram three souls into a phone booth, and you won’t hear Sutherland’s velvet venom, but you can trap three desperate colleagues in a glowing booth, stranded in a desolate parking lot, and still have a lot of fun.
At Starkweather Financial Corporation, three colleagues are about to stumble into a nightmare that’ll make their worst days seem like a holiday. Financial advisor David (Brian Geraghty) drags himself to the office Christmas party, after a day of client chaos, with one goal: to finally muster the guts to charm Emily (Alice Eve), the office blonde he’s secretly crushed on forever. Her last day at the firm is his final shot, now or never.
Amid clinking glasses and a clumsy handbag mix-up, he offers her a ride home, desperate for a moment alone. But fate has other plans when their colleague and David’s buddy, Corey (Josh Peck), crashes the moment and invites himself along for the ride.
Corey suggests a late-night food run, but first, a quick stop at a parking lot ATM to grab some cash. While fumbling with a glitchy machine that refuses to cooperate, the trio ends up crammed inside the glass booth, only to freeze when a man in a bulky blue hooded coat looms outside as they try to leave.
It’s a genius setup, trapping our main characters in a transparent tomb of vulnerability. We’re used to confined horror flicks, creaky elevators, old houses, where ones can at least hide in the shadows or huddle in corners. ATM flips the script and laughs at that hope: No walls to lean on and equally nowhere to hide. Just the bone-chilling reality of a faceless predator staring them down from the black void outside, watching their every twitch as the winter chill seeps through the glass.
Fair warning: Its plot holes are big enough to swallow a snowplow, and its coincidences stretch credibility to the breaking point, but it’s still something we can look past. As the trio unravels emotionally, their judgment grows increasingly clouded and desperate, Corey’s reckless bravado, Emily’s cool-headed clarity, and David’s faltering leadership collide as they scramble for a way out. Every frantic step toward freedom is met with the hooded fiend’s savage lunge, keeping them one misstep away from total disaster.
The hooded villain crafts a masterful psychological chess match, like a spider spinning a deadly web, keeping the trio and us on tenterhooks with every calculated move. While the movie teases us with his occasional dawdling, it balances this by the suspense it creates, as the trio huddles and shivers in their glass prison, haunted by the question of what he’s plotting next.
ATM knows exactly how to play its cards, tight to the chest and with just enough flair to keep you leaning in. It delivers sharp jolts of intensity when you least expect them, the kind that make you sit up a little straighter and maybe clutch the armrest a bit tighter. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on where it’s headed, it throws in those unexpected twists and turns that catch you off guard.
Pro tip: don’t skip the credits, a sly bonus scene sneaks in.
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