My wife and I were bored the other day and were looking for something to watch on Peacock. We came across a movie called 30 miles from nowhereand even though the synopsis of the movie was pretty short and didn’t tell us much about what the movie was about, we decided to take the plunge and watch it. I had never heard of it and basically knew nothing about it, so I was hoping it would be a hidden gem that somehow flew under the radar and that it would be great.

So were my assumptions correct or was it one of those movies I should have avoided? Read on to find out…

Summary

A group of college friends meet in a cabin in the middle of nowhere to attend the funeral of one of their classmates, unaware of the danger they are in.

The main roles are played by Carrie Preston, Rob Benedict, Rusty Schwimmer and Cathy Shim.

I must congratulate 30 miles from nowhere as he joins the group of films like the remake of Mother’s Day, lice, wet hot American summerAnd The file as one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. Absolutely nothing about it works and I knew after five minutes that I had made a huge mistake choosing it as our film of the night. It suffers from a poorly written script, lacks likable characters and features some of the worst acting I have ever seen in my life.

Written by Seana Kofoed (Claws, American Princess) and directed by Caitlin Koller (Blood Sisters, Maid of Horror), this movie (which is listed as horror/comedy despite containing no elements of either genre) is so bad that I literally got a headache watching it.

The premise may sound promising to uninformed viewers, but trust me when I say it’s anything but. It’s about a group of unlikeable college friends who gather at a cabin in the middle of the woods to celebrate the life of a former classmate who committed suicide, and when they get there, strange things start happening (such as blood coming out of the faucets and a swarm of cockroaches seemingly appearing out of nowhere).

From there, the characters curse, drink, fight, and cheat on their significant others until we get an uninteresting revelation that tells us why all these strange things are happening. That, in a nutshell, is exactly what happens in this movie, and believe me when I say it’s even worse than it sounds.

One of the biggest problems I have with 30 miles from nowhere is that there is not a single sympathetic character in the entire film and you can’t wait to see them get killed (but unfortunately none of them die). To make matters worse, the acting can only be described as atrocious. The cast includes actors such as Rob Benedict (Clear Mind, Violet), Marielle Scott (Lady Bird, Jess Plus None) and William Smillie (The dilemma they had) and while I try not to put down anyone’s acting talent, I don’t think any of them (or anyone else who appears in this film) will ever win an Oscar for their acting talent.

While the entire cast presents their performances rather simply and wants to be somewhere else, Carrie Preston (You/Your, View) is responsible for the worst acting performance in the entire film and she was so bad she should be ashamed of herself. Her performance is just embarrassing every time she is on screen and I am honestly shocked that she didn’t win a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress based on her performance. I know that sounds harsh but her acting is really that bad in this film.

The twist at the end also didn’t convince me. In the hands of more competent filmmakers, it might have worked, but here it’s a complete disappointment. I admit it’s a good idea, but due to the poor script, it just doesn’t work at all. It feels extremely rushed and tacked on at the last minute, and if I had to guess, I’d say that Kofoed (who stars as Elaine in the film) had no idea how to end things when she was working on the script, and this reveal just came out of nowhere at the last minute.

Still, it’s nothing to write home about.

As you can see, I was not a fan of 30 miles from nowhere and I’m amazed I was able to finish it. I always try to find something positive to say about the films I review, but this time it was an extremely difficult task. The only thing I liked about it was the dog who makes a brief appearance, and you could argue that he’s the best actor in the whole film.

Avoid this movie at all costs unless you like horror movies where no one gets killed and the characters are beyond despicable.