Munger Road Movie Review

Munger Road

                                                    

Munger Road is a horror thriller movie released in 2011. This movie is based on the local myths and the urban legends of Munger Road, which is located in Bartlett, Illinois. The film Munger Road is written and directed by Nicholas Smith and starred by Bruce Davison, Randall Batinkoff, Trevor Morgan, Brooke Peoples, Hallock Beals and Lauren Storm.

The movie Munger Road tells the story of four teens who have some strange experiences at an empty road. At the same time, the local police learn that, a serial killer has escaped from the prison and he is heading to that empty road. The police follow the leads and it brings them where those four teens are.  

A Scene from the movie Munger Road

Plot:

Four teens (two couples) start for an adventure where they want to see and record the paranormal activities of Munger Road. Legend has it, if they put their car in neutral gear and then stop it on the rail crossing, some ghost kids will push the car to safety. Although the girlfriends are not interested about it at all, their boyfriends are over excited to record this thing. They go to that spot and put some powder on their car’s bumper and then wait in the car. Their car really gets pushed by someone or something and they find prints of someone’s hand on the powder of the bumper.

At the same time, the sheriff of their town gets the information that a serial killer has escaped from the prison, who is responsible for the killings of several teens near the Munger Road. The next day is the day of a local festival and a lot of people are coming to this town for that, so the sheriff and the mayor get really serious to catch the killer. The sheriff, along with his deputy, goes to the killer’s previous home, where someone hits the deputy in his head in the dark and escapes. Then they start to look for the killer in all possible hiding places. They also find an abandoned car in the town.

Meanwhile, the teens in the Munger Road start their journey back. On the way, suddenly their car stops and they can’t start it again. It is an empty place with no houses or passing cars nearby and with no signals in their cell phones, so at first, they plan to stay in the car till the dawn. But later, they change plan and a boy goes out searching for help. In the car the others get scared when he does not come back in few hours. Suddenly, two of them get sms from that boy, where one of the sms urges them to run away from the car. The boy in the car checks the recording in his camera and finds another man’s presence near their car. Then the girlfriend of the boy who left earlier, leaves the car to seek help. Only two were in car and soon, someone comes to the car. The boy manages to run away before that person attacks but the girl’s fate is not shown. He again comes to the car to look for her girlfriend and then gets attacked by that person.

In the town, the sheriff and his deputy look for the killer at an underground tunnel which runs to a cabin near the Munger Road. At one point, they get separated and the deputy finds the remains of the body of that killer’s victim. The sheriff heads for the cabin in his car. The girl, who left the car second, reaches the cabin and gets attacked by someone. She manages to escape and finds her boyfriend hiding there. The mysterious person again catches them but finally, leaves the girl unharmed. Then the sheriff reaches the cabin, finding no bodies near the car or at the cabin, except the living girl. Then the sheriff learns a very strange information about the killer, which changes the whole scenario.

A Scene from the movie Munger Road

My review about Munger Road:

I don’t want to draw conclusion fast about Munger Road.

The plot of Munger Road is good and thrilling, except the ending. Everything was going fine throughout the movie and near the end, it may really make you thrilled, until at the very end, you will find the movie Munger Road is incomplete, as it ends abruptly  with showing ‘to be continued’. It felt very odd without any indication ago in the poster or throughout the movie. Regular viewers like us have every right to feel cheated by the way it ends.

To talk about the other aspects, the acting and the dialogues of Munger Road were actually good. The tension of this thriller movie keeps on building slowly and the director has succeed to keep us wondering about what is happening out there, without knowing exactly what to expect. Several times, it felt like its going to be a horror movie. In the middle of the movie, I was wondering why I haven’t heard about Munger Road earlier, as it seemed to be a pretty good one. Then I realized, it’s the ending which has taken all the credit away from this one.

The screenplay of Munger Road was also good. Two completely different stories, the story of the teens and the story of the sheriff, went parallel and converged beautifully at the cabin near the end.

But still, there were some plot-holes, which the director could avoid to improve the quality of the Munger Road. For example, if the prank about the ghost was played by the boys, then who pushed their car? How did they get the sms where there was no network? We saw the killer attacked a boy near the car, but how come the sheriff didn’t find any sign when he went there? And how come, two persons sitting in a silent car, can’t hear when their car’s trunk is being opened?

There are no adult scenes in Munger Road, so you can safely watch it with kids.

So, overall, I liked almost everything about Munger Road except the ending. Moreover, by searching on internet, I could not see any possibility of part 2 till when I’m writing this review. So I don’t know what the director is trying to do with this movie. And at the end, the ‘to be continued’ did not give me a good feeling. I will not recommend Munger Road to anyone, at least until I see any possibility of its second part.

Anyway, you may find some interesting facts about the myths of the actual Munger Road by searching over internet.

For those who are interested:

IMDB Link: Munger Road IMDB

Wikipedia Link: no Wikipedia entry about Munger Road was found.. 

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