Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Toll Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 6, 2021

There may be something a little disconcerting for those wanting a career in acting when one of the talking heads in the making of featurette included on this disc as a (sole) supplement mentions that the stars of The Toll, Jordan Hayes and Max Topplin, who also co-produced the film, were far enough along in their performance careers to have the “connections” to “attract investors” (with the clear implication being that Hayes and Topplin had to personally reach out to folks to ask for money, not that their mere presence attracted it). A rather long crawl of names in the closing credits given “special thanks” might indicate there was a small scale crowdfunding effort boosting the film, but writer and director Michael Nader makes it clear in his comments in the featurette that a miniscule budget became the mother of invention for The Toll, a horror film that plays out almost entirely as a so-called “two hander”, with much of the “action” taking place in a car. The Toll would seem to be introducing yet another soon to be iconic horror film villain, in this case The Toll Man, except that Nader never quite clarifies who or what The Toll Man is, what his (its?) backstory might be, and what exactly might be the motivations behind his nefarious behaviors. Instead, the film works up a considerable amount of angst by simply detailing the unfolding relationship between traveler Cami (Jordan Hayes), who has endured a long delayed and storm ridden flight to Canada in order to visit her estranged father, and rideshare driver Spencer (Max Topplin), who is seen in the film’s opening images “swiping left” to dismiss two prospective male ride clients, before accepting Cami as his paycheck for the evening. He does so without yet having an address to drive Cami to, and when she finally gets in his car and sends the rideshare app the destination, it turns out to be a long drive into the veritable boondocks, which means that Cami and Spencer are going to be spending some considerable time together, whether or not they want to.

The first act of The Toll documents the "getting to know you" phase of the relationship between Cami and Spencer, and it's a phase marked by awkwardness and even some not very subtle discouragement from Cami attempting to stop whatever "bonding" might be taking place. Spencer is a self-confessed "Chatty Cathy", and Cami, exhausted after a long and bumpy flight which was delayed by hours, really is having none of it. She also seems inherently distrustful, as her ready finger on a can of pepper spray reveals. But Spencer, while admittedly on the weird side, seems harmless enough, which any fan of horror films will know is probably the first clue that he may in fact not be. The drive to Cami's father's house proceeds into the wilderness, which is when both Spencer and the film take a rather deliberate detour.

While there's at least some ambiguity as to whether or not he does it on purpose, Spencer takes a backwoods road into an isolated forest setting, insisting his GPS is telling him to go that way, even while Cami herself insists it's not the way to her father's property. The upshot is that Spencer's car simply stops working and the two find themselves stranded, soon becoming aware that there may be someone, or something, else lurking in the woods. Cami attempts to take off herself, but in a plot trope that has been used countless times in other films (notably in another film available on Blu-ray from Lionsgate, Vivarium), she ends up right back where she started from, namely at Spencer's broken down car.

In the meantime, a mysterious message about paying The Toll Man has appeared on the back window of Spencer's car, but Cami has also discovered some information in the car that leads her to believe Spencer picking her up was no accident. One way or the other, it appears that there is a hunting party of sorts out for the pair, though, again, Nader tries to play both sides against the middle, so to speak, keeping it at least within the realm of possibility that Spencer has arranged this all himself for some nefarious reason. When an old lady named Lorraine (Rosemary Dunsmore) suddenly shows up driving a tractor through the woods, she delivers a probably unintentionally hilarious "Moishe the Explainer" diatribe letting Spencer and Cami know that they're not really there, or maybe she's not really there, but one way or the other, The Toll Man wants one or both of them dead and he won't stop until that goal is achieved. And then Lorraine just drives away on her tractor, with Cami's pleas to have her call the police falling by the wayside.

It seems evident that Nader wants to build some kind of traditional horror film mythology with The Toll, and there are certainly some decent foundational elements here, including some kind of ghostly imagery, but there are also a lot of unanswered questions. When the film suddenly takes yet another sharp turn late in the story, it seems completely unnecessary and in fact kind of makes everything that has gone before pointless. The wrap up, which sees good old Dad (James McGowan) show up like a veritable deus ex machina while Lorraine looks on approvingly (evidently she was there), may strike some as almost willfully sanguine, given the traumas that Cami in particular seems to have faced for years, which The Toll Man supposedly extracts from her memory in order to torment her.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was at least somewhat more positively disposed toward The Toll than I was. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

The Toll Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Toll is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. The closing credits offer a Red Helium logo, and this is another Red captured piece that I personally found quite remarkable, considering how intentionally dark things are virtually the entire running time of the film. While detail levels are obviously at least somewhat dependent upon the amount of light offered in the frame, take a look at screenshots like 18, where there's an almost palpable rendering of the burlap, to get an idea of how generally excellent detail levels are here, within an admittedly often shadowy context. Michael Nader gets into the kind of interesting if spatially clustered use of red and gold lighting in terms of the car's back lights and headlights, but several scenes which play out in those lighting regimens are often very evocative looking. There are a few passing issues with crush, and I'm assuming the pixellated, lo-res look of some of the video feeds (as in screenshots 14 and 19) are intentional.

The Toll Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Toll features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that does rely on some pretty hoary startle effects, as in the momentary vision (accompanied of course by a burst of LFE) of a "pedestrian" that Spencer and Cami think they've run over. Surround activity is subtle, but there are good uses of spooky ambient effects when the two are stumbling through the woods. Quite a bit of the film takes place in the confines of the car, where dialogue is rendered cleanly and even directionally, but where real engagement of the surround channels can be intermittent. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.

The Toll Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Pay the Toll Man (HD; 19:51) is a decent EPK with some good interviews, including with Michael Nader, who gets into things like the film's palette and working on a limited budget.

The Toll Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It frankly won't be very surprising if Michael Nader decides to return to The Toll Man to further flesh out what is more or less an outline in this film. Nader excels at crafting a nicely moody and at least occasionally angst filled ambience, but the writing might have benefited from more clarity. Jordan Hayes and Max Topplin may have needed to call a few of their closest show business friends to help with funding for this project, but at least they got an effective demo reel out of the deal. Nader is a talent to keep an eye on, even if The Toll may not always register fully. Technical merits are solid for those who are considering a purchase.