1970s-set thriller The Man in the White Van purports to be inspired by real-life events. Some reviews have suggested it draws on the crimes of serial killer Billy Mansfield, though the villain's identity remains ambiguous throughout the film (likely to leave things open for a possible sequel). I suspect if director Warren Skeels were honest, he would admit to his primary influence being John Carpenter's Halloween. Like that classic, Skeel's narrative feature debut takes place in the final days of October and is centred on a virginal teenage girl being stalked by an antagonist who seems to have randomly chosen her as his target (let's not forget the sister/brother stuff didn't pop up until Halloween II). As the title implies, the villain here spends most of his screen time unseen behind the wheel of a white van, and the stalking scenes recall the early segments of Halloween in which Michael Myers pursues Laurie Strode while commandeering a stolen station wagon. The van becomes something of a villain itself, like the eponymous Plymouth Fury of Carpenter's Christine, the truck from Spielberg's Duel, or the car from, well, The Car. Were it not for a series of flashbacks, we might wonder if there really is a human driver behind that foggy windscreen.
The Man in the White Van might be described as "Michael Myers stalks Jan from The Brady Bunch while driving Christine." That sounds goofy, and the movie could well have been a cheesefest had Skeels not committed to playing this with a straight face. When horror movies set their action in the late 20th century, it's usually for one of two reasons: to erase the storytelling problems created by cellphones and the internet, or to mine nostalgia for the genre classics of the '70s and '80s. You could argue Skeels is motivated by both reasons here. His film's plot would certainly be encumbered if its heroine had access to a cellphone or the web, and as I've pointed out, Skeels is clearly influenced by the horror cinema of that era. But what makes Skeels' debut stand out from most period horrors is that it understands the climate of '70s America that gave rise to so many great horror movies. Skeels doesn't try to mimic the aesthetic of '70s American horror movies. There's no "shot on 16mm" gimmicks or excessive era-specific needle drops. Skeels is more interested in the psychological underpinnings of '70s American horror than their technical details. His movie doesn't necessarily look like a '70s American horror movie, but it sure feels like one.
Americans entered the '70s believing bad things only happened in far off countries, and only to men. While the young men of America were off being used as cannon fodder in a pointless war in SouthEast Asia, the nation's young women were safe at home. But then horror movies began to unsettle America's young women with a series of films in which they were the ones being targeted by killers, not in the jungle of some foreign country or the alleyways of the inner city, but in the recognisable surrounds of suburban and rural America.
The Man in the White Van is centred on a classic '70s final girl. Teenager Annie (Madison Wolfe) is what would have been known as a "tomboy" in 1975, which essentially means she's not a bimbo. She likes to ride her horse, listen to Southern Rock and exercise her creative imagination by making up stories to embarrass her family at dinner parties. She has a crush on the new boy at school but she's uncomfortable with talk of sex. She's a classic final girl but she's not simply a thinly-sketched stereotype. We get to know Annie inside out, and crucially, we grow to like her.
The villain of the title appears in Annie's life as though a manifestation of her teenage anxieties. It stalks her on back roads and even parks outside her house. When she tells her parents (Ali Larter and Sean Astin) they dismiss her as crying wolf. She gets even less sympathy from her Marcia Brady-esque older sister Margaret (Brec Bassinger). As Annie finds herself increasingly isolated, it's only a matter of time before her stalker strikes.
In similar fashion to Anna Kendrick's recent debut Woman of the Hour, which also reimagines a '70s true crime incident, The Man in the White Van details the crimes of its antagonist through flashbacks. Here they start in 1970, with each subsequent crime jumping ahead a year. This creates a ticking clock tension as we edge closer to 1975 and his teased confrontation with Annie. The killer's female victims gradually become younger, which adds an extra layer of creepiness, and he becomes more daring in moving away from the inner city to the suburbs, eventually snatching a young girl from a tree-lined street straight out of Halloween. Skeels doesn't linger on the killings but rather highlights the swiftness of the killer's actions and how quickly a young woman can go from strolling down a street in blissful ignorance to suddenly finding herself bundled into the back of a psychopath's van.
The ambiguity of the white van recalls the spray-painted Captain Kirk mask of Michael Myers. Its blankness is like a white sheet on which we can project our own fears. Annie's specific anxieties seem to be of a sexual nature. The movie makes a point of showing her discomfort at having womanhood thrust upon her. Determined to make her daughter more "lady-like", Annie's mother makes Margaret shave her kid sister's legs. The resulting blood from a razor nick is lingered on as it spills into a bath, a substitute for menstruation, a representation that regardless of whether Annie is prepared for womanhood or not, the adult world, the world of male predators, is coming for her now that it's tasted her blood in the water. As her classmates discuss "Frenching," an uncomfortable Annie excuses herself, but she can't escape the white van which appears in her most anxious moments. The world won't allow her to remain a little girl.
As Annie, Wolfe is one of the most engaging final girls in some time. The movie displays unfashionable patience in setting up her showdown with the villain of the title, allowing us to soak up her specific middle-class middle-child neuroses. A subplot involving Annie's jealousy regarding her older sister being allowed to have her own phone in her bedroom is an era-specific detail that eventually factors into the climax. Annie lives in fear of her mother's threats to get rid of her beloved horse. Annie is dealing with so much outside of being targeted by a killer that the film would function as an engrossing teen coming-of-age drama if it removed its horror elements. But Annie's ordeal is directly tied to her coming-of-age.
Skeels displays an astute understanding of how Carpenter used physical space to suggest the connections between Myers and Laurie, isolating his heroine and villain in key shots that underpin that relationship. There's a wonderful moment where Annie is in the backseat of her family's car as they drive home from church; initially we see the whole family gathered in the vehicle but through a simple pan Skeels positions Annie at the far right of the frame as we see the van following on the far left, making their entwined destiny explicit. This is a filmmaker who knows how to use the methods handed down by the horror masters. With The Man in the White Van Skeels has created less a love letter to '70s American horror cinema, more a heavy breathing phone call that will unnerve you in how it plays out its terror in an everyday setting.
Directed by: Warren Skeels
Starring: Madison Wolfe, Brec Bassinger, Skai Jackson, Ali Larter, Sean Astin
