The Only Crash Worse Than the Ones in the Movie
There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Old 37 — a film so joyless, so incoherent, and so determined to turn car wrecks into character development that it’s less a slasher and more a cinematic pileup. Directed by Christian Winters (under the “Alan Smithee” pseudonym, which should tell you everything you need to know), Old 37 feels like it was made by people who saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre once, took a nap halfway through, and woke up convinced it was about traffic safety.
This is a movie about two deranged brothers posing as paramedics to kill car crash victims — which sounds like a killer idea, literally and figuratively. But the execution is so clumsy that you start rooting for the ambulance to show up and put you out of your misery.
A Film That Commits Manslaughter on Storytelling
The film opens in 1977 with two kids and their father, Jimmy, living in a junkyard. Jimmy enjoys listening to a police scanner, impersonating an EMT, and strangling car accident victims — you know, relatable dad stuff. The kids watch as he murders a woman, which sets the tone for their adult lives as murderous ambulance enthusiasts.
Cut to the present day, and those same kids — now grown into Kane Hodder (the iconic Jason Voorhees) and Bill Moseley (horror legend from The Devil’s Rejects) — are running the family business: showing up at crashes and killing survivors. And yet, despite having two horror heavyweights, Old 37 somehow manages to have less energy than a flat tire.
The pacing is so uneven that even the jump scares seem to show up late for work. The plot stumbles through its scenes like a drunk driver trying to explain himself to the cops. It’s a movie that can’t decide whether it wants to be Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, or a PSA for why you should never trust roadside assistance.
Brandi Cyrus and the Ghost of Nepotism
Somewhere amid the gore and engine grease, we meet Amy (Caitlin Harris), a teen so insecure about her body that she decides to get breast implants — a decision that, in this film’s delicate handling, becomes both her defining character trait and her literal downfall. Her best friend Angel (Brandi Cyrus, yes, Miley’s sister) dies doing a stupid car stunt, which triggers a chain of events that’s somehow both overcomplicated and completely senseless.
Cyrus plays her role with all the emotional depth of a GPS saying “Recalculating.” She’s barely in the movie, but her presence lingers, mostly because everyone keeps talking about her like she was the only person in this movie who ever mattered. Which, to be fair, she might have been.
Amy, our protagonist, is meant to be a sympathetic final girl, but she spends most of the runtime alternating between whining, surgery prep, and dodging redneck EMTs. Her emotional arc has the same depth as a dented hubcap.
The Horror: Now with Extra Plot Potholes
Let’s be clear — the kills in Old 37 should be fun. You’ve got two psychopathic brothers posing as first responders, a junkyard full of corpses, and a haunted ambulance number. That premise practically writes itself. But instead of creative horror set pieces, the film gives us dimly lit chaos and the occasional CGI flame that looks like it was rendered on a 2003 Dell laptop.
Director Christian Winters (or “Alan Smithee,” for those keeping score of filmmakers disowning their own work) shoots the entire film like he’s afraid of light, coherence, or continuity. The editing is so erratic that it feels like every scene was cut by a different person who didn’t know what the movie was about.
By the time we reach the third act — a mess of stabbing, screaming, and melodrama — it’s nearly impossible to tell who’s alive, who’s dead, or who’s just bored. The climax plays out like a demolition derby filmed through a dirty windshield.
Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley Deserve Better (So Much Better)
Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley are icons in the horror community — men who’ve terrified audiences for decades. Seeing their names in Old 37 should have been cause for excitement. Instead, it’s like watching two masters of their craft show up to a haunted house only to find out it’s an insurance seminar.
Hodder growls, Moseley sneers, and together they lumber through the film like two grizzled mechanics who just realized they’re trapped in a script written by a haunted blender. You can tell they’re trying to give it some menace, but every scene around them collapses under its own stupidity.
Their characters, Darryl and Jon Roy, are supposed to be tragic — products of childhood trauma and rural madness. Instead, they come across as two dudes who took “Bring Your Father’s Murderous Hobby to Work Day” a little too seriously.
The Breast Implant Metaphor Nobody Asked For
If Old 37 has one unintentional theme, it’s body horror via bad storytelling. Amy’s subplot about getting breast implants is played for both tragedy and titillation, neither of which land. The film’s moral seems to be, “If you change yourself to fit in, a maniac will stab your fake boobs.”
It’s grotesque in concept but dumb in execution — a grotesque cocktail of misogyny and melodrama that even the most forgiving horror fans will struggle to swallow. When the killer literally pops her implant with a knife, the symbolism is about as subtle as a roadside billboard screaming, “SEXUAL INSECURITY KILLS.”
A Junkyard of Missed Opportunities
Every now and then, Old 37 threatens to stumble into something interesting. The concept of killer paramedics? Genius. The eerie rural setting? Perfect. The presence of Hodder and Moseley? Horror gold.
And yet, the movie manages to screw it all up by taking itself too seriously while simultaneously looking like it was edited on a dare. The cinematography is murky, the dialogue is laughable (“You should’ve called 911!” might be the most ironic line in horror history), and the music sounds like a stock-metal soundtrack from a Monster Energy drink commercial.
It’s as if the film was made by someone who wanted to parody grindhouse horror but forgot it was supposed to be funny.
Death by Poor Direction
By the time Old 37 reaches its final, flaming ambulance crash — yes, there’s a flaming ambulance crash — the audience has long since flatlined. The ending tries for tragedy, chaos, and shock, but lands somewhere closer to “please, just make it stop.”
It’s a conclusion that leaves no questions unanswered because there weren’t any worth asking in the first place. You walk away not thinking about trauma or survival, but wondering how so many talented horror veterans ended up in something this lifeless.
Conclusion: Call a Different Ambulance
Old 37 isn’t scary. It isn’t clever. It isn’t even bad in an entertaining way. It’s just… flat. A horror film without pulse or purpose, running on fumes of genre clichés and wasted potential.
It’s what happens when someone watches Joy Ride, The Devil’s Rejects, and Grey’s Anatomy back-to-back and decides to blend them together in a bloodstained blender.
The only true terror here is the realization that this script made it past multiple drafts, that actors showed up and said these lines out loud, and that someone thought, “Yes, this deserves a Cannes screening.”
Final Verdict: 1.5 out of 5 ambulances — one for the idea, half for the effort, and none for the execution. If you ever see Old 37 broken down on the side of the cinematic highway, do yourself a favor: keep driving.
