My quick rating – 3.2/10. Talk about suckering me in. Kill Trip kicks off with a surprisingly stylish graphic novel-inspired opening credits sequence. The visuals themselves are rather impressive, and it briefly seems as if the credits will lead somewhere interesting that will tie back into the movie itself. They do…sort of. Just enough to remind you that writer/director Kristian McKay had at least one good idea.

Then reality hits.

We wake up with Katy (Diletta Guglielmi) and her group of four friends on their way to a Texas music festival. After demonstrating that not a single one of them possesses even a passing familiarity with rhythm, they’re soon stranded on the side of the road. Enter Dallas (Tate Christensen), a friendly bloke driving a van who happily offers them a lift.

Because accepting a ride from a stranger in a creepy van has never gone badly in horror movies.

Oddly enough, Dallas turns out to be the most accommodating serial-killer-looking chauffeur imaginable. Need a swim? Sure. Want random sightseeing stops? No worries. He’s practically running the world’s least profitable Uber. The giant flashing warning signs couldn’t be brighter if they were sponsored by Vegas.

The dialogue doesn’t help matters. Every conversation feels painfully forced, with characters delivering lines that sound like they were generated by a “Teen Horror Dialogue” starter pack.

My personal favourite – “You think this guy picked us up to murder us, and then kill us.” 36-minute mark if you think I am joking.

To make matters worse, the group spends so much time arguing with each other that you almost find yourself rooting for the mysterious van driver. These people don’t seem to like each other, and before long neither will the audience.

There are a few light gore scenes scattered throughout, but nothing particularly memorable. The kills don’t overshadow the stupidity of the script, and unfortunately that script is where Kill Trip completely falls apart. It borrows ideas from far better road-trip horrors without using them properly. That and the plot threads dangling everywhere don’t help. All this before stumbling into an ending that’s unintentionally hilarious.

It’s frustrating because the opening storyboard and the basic premise had potential. With tighter writing and characters that behaved like actual human beings instead of walking horror clichés, there might have been a fun little indie slasher hiding underneath.

Instead, Kill Trip spends most of its runtime trying to hitchhike on the success of better films and never reaches its destination.