Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Toll’ on VOD, a Horror-Creeper Pitting a Cab Driver and His Passenger Against the Bagheaded Toll Man

No, the new VOD horror movie The Toll isn’t about two-and-a-half miles of brake lights in front of you on the turnpike, but it’s definitely almost as scary. No, it’s about the Toll Man, who first-time filmmaker Michael Nadler would probably like to hear mentioned in the same breath as creepy-movie -man types like the Candyman, Slenderman, Empty Man, or even Zack Snyder’s version of Superman. Low-budget horror flicks like this are often a dime a dozen, but sometimes, you find one that’s worth at least a dime by itself. Maybe this is one of those?

THE TOLL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The Uber-but-not-specifically-Uber driver cycles through his potential customers: This guy who looks like a dork? Nah. This other guy who looks like he benches 400 lbs. while napping? Definitely not. This woman with a flattering profile photo? That’s the one. He pulls up to the airport doors and Cami (Jordan Hayes) gets in. It’s 3 a.m. Her flight was delayed and grueling and all the usual air travel incompetence that we just accept as normal these days. She’s beat, and now they have an hour-plus drive to her father’s house out in BFE. Her/our driver, Spencer (Max Topplin), didn’t know it’d be such a long trip, but he’s OK with it. The camera swivels back and forth between them until we feel kinda uneasy.

Ol’ Spence here, he’s a terrible conversationalist, the try-hard type who insists on talking even though everything he says is awkward and maybe a hair too probing, clueless that bringing up his archery-hunting hobby and complimenting a woman on her profile pic might make her uncomfortable. Or maybe he’s not clueless at all, and is intentionally sowing discomfort like a total psycho. Reminder, it’s the wee hours and they’re in the middle of nowhere, the exact time and place where nothing good happens, especially in horror movies. She surreptitiously rummages through her purse and gets the pepper spray ready, just in case. “There’s a lot of creepy people out there,” Spence says, stupidly or calculatedly, but either way, Cami’s a breath or three from jamming her house key into his eyeball in an act of self-defense.

Spencer takes a turn and Cami says that’s not right, but his proof is the GPS. She accepts that it’s probably just a different route and that the GPS isn’t GP-posseSsed, and maybe this guy is just socially maladroit and not a lunatic who’s about to make a pizza out of her epidermis or whatever. They’re on a dirt road an- HEY STOP! A manlike figure is in the middle of the road. Spencer slams on the brakes. Freaked out, they get out and look around. Nobody there. Now the car won’t start. Cell phones are dead. Of course cell phones are dead. Cell phones can solve many problems in movie plots now, and must be eliminated lest movie plots go extinct.

Cami would rather walk home in the dark than hang out with Spencer, but her stroll down the road that’s straight takes her past some ROAD CLOSED and DETOUR signs that weren’t there before, and they have other fun messages like KEEP GOING I DARE YOU and HE CAN SEE YOU scrawled on them. Prolly just some punk kids being vandals, no doubt! Funny thing is, the straight road that never turns or curves just leads her right back to Spencer and his car, so she either walked through a portal or the road exists in a place where the laws of physics can find no purchase. There’s a message written in the condensation on the car’s rear window: PLEASE PAY THE TOLL MAN. So let’s get this straight — the guy who was there but wasn’t there is probably the Toll Man, and I’d bet my firstborn he doesn’t just want a buck-thirty-five, coins only.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Well, the script makes direct references to The Strangers, and there are individuals who turn up in the third act with burlap sacks on their heads. So this is kind of like The Strangers with the feedback-loop physics of something like Cube and a dollop of Sartre-esque hell-is-other-people delightfulness, because The Toll’s scenario seems to offer no exit for its main characters.

Performance Worth Watching: Hayes is halfway-decent as the would-be horror-movie victim who’s a little more resourceful and cautious than most characters of her ilk.

Memorable Dialogue: “I’m always up for an adventure!” — Spencer emits a blast of ironic foreshadowing

“I’m just not really into the whole Legolas thing.” — Cami swipes left on bow-and-arrow enthusiasts

“Maybe it’s just a weird road and we’re exhausted.” — Spencer gaslights both of them

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Toll dilutes its yucky, unpleasant, pit-of-your-stomach suspense — think Michael Haneke, only less, you know, Michael Haneke — with typical supernatural shenanigans, and I’m not sure if its a relief that we don’t have to confront horrible things about reality and humanity, or if the movie should be criticized for chickening out a little. It’s a herky-jerky ride as Nadler deviates from psychological realism to spooky-boogeyman bologna, then tries to marry the two in the final act, when the Toll Man gets in everyone’s heads, and past traumas come to haunt Spencer (mommy issues) and Cami (a blame-the-victim sexual assault).

We’re obviously inclined to empathize with Cami, as she’s never framed as anything but a protagonist, and her story carries some modest dramatic weight. We sure have our doubts about that dipshit Spence, who’s a tool — and also a tool the film uses to toy with us. But sometimes it’s better to imply the real-life horrors, leaving them in the subtext of the ones that manifest physically, like Toll Guy and his minions. Where Nadler kept the proceedings simple and relatively suggestive for two acts, down the stretch he detonates a dirty bomb of red herrings, contrivances and provocations that have no greater purpose than to clutter and pollute the once-spooky atmosphere. Oh, and the climax is crapola, nonsense, a senseless pile of flapdoodle. That doesn’t help.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The Toll has its moments, as they say. It’s borderline. But there’s so much stuff like this out there asking for our attention, some of which is tighter and better focused and more original. That said, file away Nadler’s name for future reference, because the movie is something he can build upon for his next feature.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream The Toll