The Man in the White Van (2023)

[The Great Owl]

In 1975, long before cell phones and the world wide web, Annie, a 15 year-old girl played by Madison Wolfe, navigates normal everyday adolescent hurdles, high school clique pecking orders, and teenage crushes as the middle child of her rural Florida family, riding horses and listening to rock music as an escape from the mundanity. All the while, a white van is always somewhere in vicinity, idling near her school, following behind the family car, or parking alongside the country road near her house. As her sightings of the van and its unseen driver become more ominous and unsettling, Annie voices her concerns, only to find that her parents, played by Sean Astin and Ali Larter, do not believe her.

Finally receiving a limited theatrical release after being featured at festivals last year, the 2023 horror thriller, The Man in the White Van, directed by Warren Skeels, is a class act example of how to achieve a foreboding aura and how to amp up scares without graphic violence. Based on true events that occurred in Florida during the 1970s, primarily the crimes of serial killer Billy Mansfield Jr., this endeavor, a collaboration between the Legion M production company and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), earns considerable mileage by focusing on coming-of-age plot developments in order to elicit our empathy for its characters before the proceedings erupt into dangerous mayhem.

I took an instant liking to The Man in the White Van as its narrative unfolded, because, style-wise, it reminds me of the made-for-television thrillers movies that I loved during my late 1970s and early 1980s youth. Wolfe is outstanding as our lead. Astin and Larter, both of whom I have loved seeing on screen for decades now, are also welcome casting choices. This is a great little film.


Four and a half stars.

[Nitroes]

Blu-ray: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...5#post23332235