‘Delivery Run’ VOD Review #2
Stars: Alexander Arnold, Jussi Lampi, Liam James Collins, Arthur Sylense, Nadine Higgin, Jeremiah Crosby, Darren McStay, Celin El Azizi | Written by Joey Palmroos, Anders Holmes | Directed by Joey Palmroos
“Going up the mountain, are we?”
Alexander Arnold (no, not that one) delivers a performance that thrives as Delivery Run takes the highway to genre mayhem. Mixing elements of Duel along with comedy and your favourite wintery thrillers, Delivery Run is the complete ice cold spectacle.
All that Lee (Alexander Arnold) wanted to do was to deliver food and pay off his debt. An almost impossible challenge, but Lee remains delusionally defiant that he can pay off his debt, avoid a catastrophic beating, and live to fight another day with his pet fish. Here’s the issue: Lee isn’t the only one driving the long, snow-ridden roads of Minnesota; evil Mr Plow is lurking.
Mr Plow (Jussi Lampi) is present, often without doing anything. His presence, both bizarre and daunting, adds anxiety to Lee’s quickfire cash jobs. Journeying from delivery to delivery, he either encounters Mr Plow on the road or at least, he dreads doing so.
Delivery Run takes up to roughly half of its runtime for things to take an aggressive turn for the worse. Until then, there is an obvious growth in tension and anticipation for things to get weird. Its wintery rural environment exists as a perfect foundation for the balance of tension. Lee’s race against time to pay off his debts, alongside his morbid curiosity surrounding Mr Plow, is well maintained to keep the audience enticed throughout.
Delivery Run finds great success in its presentation of the actions of its antagonist rather than a backstory or mystery showcase of the antagonist himself. There are very brief touches on who this psycho might be, but nothing spectacular. The option to focus upon his actions rather than his reason or influence is as terrifying as it is powerful.
Tonally, Delivery Run opts to blend in bits of comedy with its obvious horror elements – the success in this daring mixture is thanks to an excellent character performance from Alexander Arnold. He successfully enables comedy to breathe within the realms of horror. For great lengths, Delivery Run is just Arnold driving around, nervous as f*ck, alongside his pet fish. His performance has the responsibility to deliver so much, yet it lives up to every expectation.
Written and directed by Joey Palmroos, Delivery Run delivers the goods of a terrific genre film, a throwback picture, that at times can be a chilling ice-cold horror. The ideal film for a viewing in the wintery season.
***½ 3.5/5
Delivery Run is available on digital platforms now.
