At the End of the Road

September 19, 2011
Jerkins follows his well-received debut, A Very Simple Crime, with a bogeyman tale that ratchets up a high level of dread the way a slasher flick does if one concentrates on the images rather than the internal logic of a porous plot. One summer day in 1976, 10-year-old Kyle Edwards on his bike and Melodie Godwin in her car barely avoid a collision on the road near Kyle’s home in rural Georgia. Kyle is unhurt, but Melodie is badly injured when her car overturns. Frightened by her bloody appearance, Kyle races off. When he gets up the nerve to return to the scene of the accident the next day, there’s no sign of the woman or her car. Enter the maliciously cunning Kenny Ahearn, a stroke victim known as “the paralyzed man,” who sets his sights on Kyle. Sheriff’s Deputy Officer Dana Turpin’s search for the missing Melodie provides a ray of hope, while Ahearn’s demented actions exact a terrible toll in this scary thriller.