BLACK CAB

***

Directed by Bruce Goodison.

Starring Nick Frost, Synnøve Karlsen, Luke Norris, George Bukhari, Tessa Parr.

Horror, UK, 88 mins, Certificate 15

Released on Blu-ray by Acorn Media on April 7th 2025

Since Travis Bickle killed a bunch of (arguably deserving) people and became a media hero for America’s jaded 1970s masses, any subsequent movie about an unhinged taxi driver has always seemed something of an underwhelming footnote - though we have had the occasional decent effort, like Julian Seri’s NIGHT FARE (2015) and the low-budget 2017 shocker RYDE. We’ve also seen impressive movies that make a virtue out of their lonely highway backdrop and / or the restrictions of being largely based inside a single vehicle, two of the best coming from the cynical pen of the underrated Eric Red: THE HITCHER (1986) and COHEN AND TATE (1989). Additionally, there’s a modest brace of modern ghost stories set on the road, with standouts including the shivery seasonal chillers DEAD END (2003) and WIND CHILL (2007).

Written by David Michael Emerson (with additional material credited to star / producer Nick Frost and Virginia Gilbert), BLACK CAB is a hybrid of all the above. It announces its supernatural elements early on via a face-at-the-window jump scare, while establishing a psycho-killer scenario involving a troubled, emotionally vulnerable young woman and the unbalanced driver who picks her up. Atmospherically shot in Manchester and the Peak District by Adam Etherington and boasting an effectively unsettling score by Gazelle Twin (Elizabeth Bernholz), it doesn’t quite all hold together, but a couple of fine performances keep it compelling.

Synnøve Karlsen is excellent as the protagonist, a downtrodden young woman in a toxic relationship with obnoxious Luke Norris - and secretly carrying his baby. Our main introduction to their unhealthy relationship takes the form of a suitably uncomfortable evening meal with friends (George Bukhari and Tessa Parr), during which – much to Karlsen’s dismay – Norris breaks the news that they’re getting engaged, while also telling the first of BLACK CAB’s “real-life” horror stories. After this sole scene of social interaction, most of what follows unfolds in the eponymous black cab with tinted windows, as driven by Nick Frost, who picks them up during a particularly fraught moment. 

Frost, recently seen in the much jokier and gorier GET AWAY, is terrific as the unstable driver, prone to ill-placed, warped colloquialisms and childish asides (“Wakey, wakey, hands off snaky!” / “Piggy promise” / “You dirty little rabbit”) and dated pop culture references that veer from QUINCY M.E. to singing along to Dickey Lee’s “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)”. Exploiting our foreknowledge of his jovial, sweary comic persona in the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy and beyond, he turns on a dime from jokey chumminess to grim childhood flashbacks (Dad hitting him on car journeys of his youth) and jarring bursts of rage. 

With Norris out of action for most of the duration, BLACK CAB is largely a two-hander, and the tension is sustained nicely thanks to the central dynamic, with Karlsen an authentically oppressed passenger-in-peril we can truly empathise with. Director Bruce Goodison, who has a prolific background in T.V., keeps the film visually interesting, though the ghostly images punctuating the narrative are less creepy than the simple, chilling sequence in which Frost relays the legend of a famously haunted road, involving a tragic, dead woman (Tilly Woodward) forever seeking her lost child. In embracing tropes from different sub-genres and well-worn plot-turns, BLACK CAB never quite hits the bullseye, but Frost and Karlsen triumph as a pair of equally lonely characters who, ultimately, have more in common than at first appears. 

The Acorn disc of BLACK CAB – which is also available on Shudder – has just a two minute stills reel for extras. 

Steven West