Saturday is Horror Day #227 - Locked

 Locked

Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgärd) means well. He generally has good intentions. But somehow things always seem to get in the way. Such as when it's his turn to pick up his daughter Sarah (Ashley Cartwright) from school but his car is in the shop and he doesn't have the money to pay for it to be fixed and the shop owner refuses to take his word for it that he will pay him or extend him credit.

Eddie is at the end of his rope and desperate. His ex has warned him what will happen if he doesn't fulfill 

his duties as Sarah's father. His promises are empty and she is fed u with them. He does everything he knows how to do to get the almost $500 he needs... and then he spots the luxury SUV sitting alone in a parking lot.  Looking vulnerable. And it's unlocked. What else is a guy to do but take it?

But life is not quite so easy....

Eddie finds himself, to his dismay, locked inside the car. Panicked - and on a time schedule - he tries to get out, but to no avail. Then the screen begins to light up with a call, one that is marked Answer Me. He ignores it the first few times, but finally he's forced to answer it. To his dismay, he discovers himself speaking with the car's owner,  William (Anthony Hopkins), who tells me he is tired of having his car stolen and the police doing nothing about it. So he's taken matters into his own hands. And now, if Eddie wants out, he's going to have to play William's game.

I have to confess that when I saw that this film had both Bill Skarsgärd and Anthony Hopkins, I knew I wanted to see it, no matter what it was about. And I'm glad I did. It's a psychological thriller about two men at the end of their ropes. Eddie is just the unlucky one who falls in the fed-up William's trap. Seriously, who would leave such an expensive vehicle unlocked, alone in a parking lot? But Eddie is desperate, so he isn't using what common sense he might possess. Eddie goes through an ordeal in his attempts to simply exit the car, and William is relentless in his methods - including taxing Eddie, and withholding food and drink, torturing him with music, etc. I was never sure how things would work out, and I found myself very invested in finding out. Both men do an excellent job of portraying their characters. Despite one reviewer who blared something about Pennywise vs Hannibal Lecter, that is far from the case. Eddie is no Pennywise and William no Lecter. I found the movie very enjoyable, I'll give this film 4 Stars.