Cold Meat (2024)

Someone managed to coax Allen Leech away from the luxury of "Downton" to far chiller climes where he has to step in to avert a row between "Ana" (Nina Bergman) and ex-boyfriend "Vincent" (Yan Tual) in a roadside diner. Next thing, he's driving along the icy roads with his own vehicular stalker, manages to crash and then things take and even more ridiculous turn with a certain something lurking (not so willingly) in the boot. Can he survive? Should he survive? Probably more importantly - do we care if he survives? To be fair to auteur Sébastien Drouin he does use the wintery and dark conditions to elicit a sense of bone-chilling, claustrophobic, menace as the car is gradually covered in snow and events become rather more perilous, but the acting is almost as mediocre as the direction and that's only marginally better than the writing. Thanks to some budget gaffer tape, the story proceeds to take too many implausible turns as it quite literally goes nowhere fast. I wouldn't bother if I were you, this is low/no budget fayre that looks like a training film for aspiring creatives dipping their toes in the business.