Southbound

“Regret and remorse. Amends and atonement […] We’re all on the same endless highway, the one with no name, no exits“. These words reveal the ultimate meaning of “Southbound,” a surreal compilation of related horror shorts whose common denominator lies in the guilt tormenting the various characters, as well as the shared desert highway setting where events unfold (exterior shots were filmed in the sweltering, desolate Mojave Desert, lending everything a pervasive feeling of unreality and alienation).

Despite its fragmentary structure, the film manages to maintain good cohesion, thanks to a collaborative approach in which “each director isn’t restricted to working on their own piece, but is also involved in all the others” (Roxanne Benjamin). Additionally, the individual stories seamlessly blend from one to the next, thanks to the technique of using a character from one story to directly transition into the next.

As for the individual chapters, the most interesting is definitely David Bruckner’s “The Accident”, a disturbing hospital nightmare brimming with palpable tension and a marked penchant for Grand Guignol-style graphic horror. When considering a film like this, it’s impossible not to bring up classics produced by the likes of Hammer Film Productions and particularly Amicus Productions, a British film production company which specialized in horror anthologies during the 1960s and ’70s. At the end of the day, “Southbound,” just like renowned examples from the past (works such as “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” and “From Beyond the Grave”), offers us a series of “morality tales” populated by sinners forced to atone for their transgressions in a world that only appears ordinary, but in reality is very similar to a circle of Hell.

In this sense, the film’s circular structure – with its attendant time-space paradoxes – takes on an atmosphere of eternal damnation.