Anna Daniels
The framing device is brilliant in its simplicity, as it lets us know that despite all of their disparate stories, the poor, unfortunate souls riding on this bus are all going to the same place. But where is that, exactly? And what does the bus itself symbolize?
Well, this is explained by the fact that — minor spoilers here — all of the main characters featured in the anthology’s segments meet their ends. If you ask us, this must mean that the bus is a kind of limbo, an in-between realm; the literal vehicle by which these doomed passengers are being transported to the afterlife. One could argue that this makes the driver more of a Ferryman than the actual embodiment of Death, to which we would respond: first, is there really that much of a difference? Second, check out the look on the guy’s face as he scans his passengers; he clearly relishes his job, probably because he knows that wherever his charges are going, they deserve to be there.
At any rate, you’ve probably gathered that we love a good horror anthology, and the only complaint we have about Bloodride is that there isn’t enough of it. Sure, everybody’s speaking Norwegian, but they’re also highly unfamiliar faces to American audiences, which lends the proceedings an eerily true-to-life quality. The stories are tight, the scares are frequent, and the episodes are just short enough to leave you wanting more.
And… that bus driver. He somehow looks like he could be an actual bus driver or Death’s avatar on Earth, and if he were in the drivers’ seat when we boarded the bus for our morning commute, we’d run screaming all the way back home.
Written by: Looper
