It’s challenging to watch Nick Frost in a role that isn’t entirely affable. After all, he’s carved a career by playing bubbly, blustering comic heroes in iconic British films like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. That’s why Black Cab, a Shudder exclusive release now making its way to home video, is a particularly interesting career choice.
Frost plays Ian, a classic London cabbie who picks up Anne (Synnøve Karlsen) and her abusive boyfriend Patrick (Luke Norris) after a meal out. He’s initially wary of the power dynamics between the two, even offering to take Anne home away from Patrick. That soon changes, though, as Ian’s far-from-noble intentions emerge. He’s actually got a lot to hide – and some pretty nefarious plans for Anne.
It’s an interesting premise that does well in the first half an hour to build up some serious tension and ask questions you’ll genuinely want the answer to. This is in no small part thanks to Frost’s performance and the character work from screenwriter Virginia Gilbert. Ian is initially attentive, chatty, and naturally charming – the hallmarks of a cabbie – but turns on a knife’s edge to particularly shocking effect. It’s also aided by an interesting relationship dynamic between Anne and Patrick regarding control in relationships and emotional abuse, which is something Black Cab would’ve done well to explore further.
That’s because when the horror side of Black Cab kicks into gear, it’s not quite as effective. There’s a good portion of the film that takes place in the solitary location of the cab, and that works, but as soon as director Bruce Goodison expands the action into new locations, and introduces a supernatural element, Black Cab jumps the shark somewhat.
You’ll start to wonder where it’s going plot-wise: exactly why Ian behaves this way, what he wants from Anne, and how everything is going to wrap up satisfyingly. Unfortunately, Black Cab doesn’t quite have the answers to the questions it poses during the first hour. The film leans into the supernatural in a way that is fairly bold, but it also dilutes the impact of the character work and emotional themes that have been broiling up to that point.
By this point, it falls into all the tropes of mid-tier horror that genre fans are all too familiar with by now: cars not starting, scrambling to attack the captor as victims escape, and more like it. It’s just not an engaging way to round off a claustrophobic, character-driven setup that could’ve been handled better.
That’s not to detract from Frost’s performance, however, nor that of Synnøve Karlsen as Anne. Both of them play really well off one another, with Frost’s vim and bouncy charm clashing with Karlsen’s fear in the face of true existential threat. While there are glimmers of spark towards the end – hearing about Ian’s true motivations, a predictable yet interesting loop for Anne, and some fleetingly decent gore – by this point it has strayed too far from what made Black Cab initially interesting.
It makes Black Cab a film of contradictions; two narrative approaches locked in conflict with one another. There’s the genuinely interesting and under-utilised exploration of abusive power dynamics and its claustrophobic setting, working against a story that desperately wants to get paranormal. Would Black Cab have been better had it stayed grounded? We’ll never know.
★★½
Black Cab is out now on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital.
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