Jeffery Reddick is a name that will be familiar to horror fans. He’s carved out a career as a screenwriter, his most famous credit being the fantastic Final Destination. Reddick has been a writer and producer for years, but now he’s made the move into directing with Don’t Look Back (previously known as Good Samaritan), his feature debut. It’s a film that looks at what people do, or do not do, when faced with an extreme situation, and offers a modern look at the Good Samaritan fable.
The story begins as Caitlin (Kourtney Bell) and her father become victims of a violent assault in their home. We then join Caitlin a few months into her recovery when she, along with a handful of other onlookers, witness a brutal attack on a man. Despite the number of witnesses, no one makes any move to help the man, some going so far as to passively record the beating, and he tragically dies. After his death, those that did not intervene begin to die one by one in mysterious circumstances with Caitlin realising that some other worldly force appears to be hunting them down.
The parallels with Final Destination are very apparent from just reading the synopsis. It appears that Reddick is hoping to tap into some of that same magic that served him so well in 1999. Don’t Look Back replaces Death with karma, the film sticking closely to the mantra that ‘karma is a bitch’, but sadly, lightning does not strike twice. Instead of creating a Final Destination mark 2, Reddick has crafted a film that comes off as a pale imitation of his best creation. At times it almost feels as though Reddick has just taken chunks from the older film and rejigged them slightly to make them fit here, but the result is slightly lacklustre and a little dated.
The scares are handled with an over reliance on score or loud noises to instil tension and suspense. This leads to excessive instances of the classic ‘it’s all nice and quiet, and then BANG, scare’. It’s a cheap tactic, which causes the audience to respond to the sudden change in audio volume rather than what is actually happening within the story. Considering how many projects Reddick has been involved with, one would hope that he’d have learned to steer well clear of this crutch.
Don’t Look Back is based upon Reddick’s short, Good Samaritan, and there is plenty of the short’s DNA within the feature film. For example, the short features some of the same cast members, character names, and snippets of dialogue. The story follows the videographer of the attack as they meet their demise. This particular death is one not featured too heavily within Don’t Look Back, almost as if the viewer is expected to seek it out to fill in the gaps. However, there are several key differences between the short and feature, mainly revolving around execution method, which would leave anyone that seeks it out a bit muddled. It’s this method within the short that makes for the more compelling viewing and so it’s a shame that this concept got reworked.
Don’t Look Back was reviewed as part of Arrow Video FrightFest.
Don’t Look Back
Summary
Don’t Look Back riffs off of Reddick’s infamous Final Destination, but is ultimately far too procedural and by-the-numbers; it just falls flat.
