The Toll (2020)

A jet-lagged traveller from Chicago, Cami (Jordan Hayes, who has a look of Kate Mara about her), lands at Hamilton International Airport in Canada in the middle of the night.

She has flown up to visit her dad who lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, but her flight was delayed by a storm, so she now has to hail a rideshare to complete her journey.

The overly chatty and socially awkward driver, Spencer (Max Topplin, who has a bit of Tim Key, from recent Alan Partridge series, about him), kind of gets on Cami's nerves, but she really starts to freak out when his GPS sends them off down a dark road she has never travelled before.

However, checking Spencer's route, Cami accepts that this is an alternate way to her dad's place.

Only shortly after that, when they are heading down a pitch black country road, they are suddenly spooked by someone seemingly stepping out in front of the car.

But when they check, there's no one there.

Unfortunately, getting back into the car, Spencer discovers it won't start and they are stranded.

Both he and Cami, separately, decide to walk and look for help, but whichever direction they go, they end up back at the car.

That is just the beginning of their night of terrifying weirdness.

All credit to writer-director Michael Nader, The Toll does a phenomenal job of slowly building tension, then easing off, then escalating matters once again.

Nader's track record has primarily been with short films, and while this certainly has the feeling of a well-contained short horror film, it doesn't drag its heels or feel padded.

Beginning as a very modern psychological horror, with Cami's growing paranoia about being 'trapped' in a car with a peculiar stranger, the story then takes a dramatic supernatural turn that increasingly reminded me of the unusual occurrences in As Above, So Below.

For the first half an hour, of this 75-minute movie, we're just with Cami and Spencer, and the strained atmosphere feels so unnervingly real.

It's the early hours of the morning, they're alone in some dark, spooky woods, without phone service, with only Spencer's bow and arrow for protection (he's a bow hunter, who keeps his equipment in the boot of his car, much to Cami's initial horror). 

It isn't until they cross paths with a local that they learn they have somehow been drawn into the parallel world of The Toll Man, a paranormal entity who - attracted by a scent of death around our protagonists - demands a payment in blood before he will let them resume their journey.

There's maybe one or two minor jump scares, but mainly The Toll relies on the psychological weapons in its arsenal, as well as such tricks as shadows moving around in the darkness behind the main characters.

Increasingly they are pulled through a series of surreal nightmares that seem determined to undermine the couple's recently developed confidence in each other, trying to force one to kill the other.

These mind-games are a supernatural spin on Jigsaw's challenges in the Saw franchise, testing the mettle of Cami and Spencer, served up by an unseen - and unheard - antagonist à la Death in the Final Destination franchise.

The dynamic between the two main characters swings back and forth, eventually going to a very dark place at the climax of the film.

While other characters do pop up, largely in the nightmare sequences, it's Jordan Hayes and Max Topplin that carry this great little Canadian fright feast.

And after watching this: I'm never getting in an Uber ever again!