Barreling in as an unhinged, maniacal cab driver, Nick Frost is the only thing that saves Black Cab (2024), a dark, low-budget British horror movie, from winding up on the scrapheap, with its script, effects, and ambition all locked in the trunk.
A Toast Gone Sour as Patrick’s Proposal Bombshell Sets the Stage
Over dinner with friends, a moment for champagne and cheers, dysfunctional lovebird Patrick (Luke Norris) announces to the group that he and Anne (Synnove Karlsen) are getting married. Her face sours like milk over his bold and unexpected announcement as she storms out of the restaurant, flagging down a black cab to take her home. Despite her objections, Patrick tags along, and the two soon find themselves on a wild ride when their nameless cabbie turns out to have other plans.
Nick Frost’s Master Puppeteer Derails into a Cringe Ghost Story on Maybell Hill
Trapped in the claustrophobic box of Frost’s black cab, Patrick and Anne meet their tormentor, a grinning loose cannon behind the wheel who needs no introductions, and none are given. He’s a master puppeteer, yanking the couple’s nerves like strings, pitting them against each other like rats in a trap.
Patrick, especially, becomes his prey, battered by Frost’s verbal venom. In the process, we discover that Frost is surprisingly effective at playing a psychopath, doing so in a way that also lets him tap into his natural sense of humor.
Black Cab would’ve thrived as a lean, mean short film, but it drives off a cliff in its bloated second act, swerving into a ghost story so clumsily crafted it feels like a betrayal of the potential it showed in its early stages. It's hard to imagine anyone enjoying the direction the movie takes at this point. Were it not for Frost’s charisma, single-handedly hauling this corpse across the finish line, it would’ve fallen apart and sunk without a trace the moment “Maybell Hill” was uttered onto our screen.
Maybell Hill, the most haunted road in England, where a woman and her child died in a tragic accident. Now she’s “The Ghost Lady,” doomed to haunt the road forever… until she gets what she wants. What that is, no one knows. What we wanted was more of the sharp back-and-forth between Frost and Patrick, but he’s foolishly zapped out of commission, left wincing on the floor, blowing what little hope the movie had going for it.
Frost Fights Alone as His Co-Star Karlsen Gets Bored of the Nonsense
Once the supernatural gears grind into place, Black Cab stumbles into a bargain-bin horror show that screams amateur hour. “The Ghost Lady's” portrayal is as generic as it gets. It's as if they pulled her straight from a stock archive of ghost footage and threw her into the frame without a second thought. We’re not sure what kind of effort went into location scouting either, but it’s about as bland and uninspiring as it gets. Between that and the ghost, the movie loses any real sense of danger and swaps suspense for accidental naptime.
Frost battles solo to keep Black Cab’s pulse alive, and to his credit, his scenes are entertaining for what they are. Everything else is hard to get behind. Synnove Karlsen’s Anne, the co-lead, is a non-event, sitting there with a permanent sad face and contributing about as much as a cardboard cutout. In her defense, she’s probably just bored of what she signed up for, and honestly, who could blame her?
As this cursed cab ride screeches toward its final stop, the reveal of Frost’s true motives, and his tangled connection to the so-called “Ghost Lady” of Maybell Hill, lands with all the grace of a story told after five too many pints. And just like that, it abandons you in a haze of bewilderment, as if the movie simply gave up, went home, and said, “OK, that’s enough of that.”