Girl (Emily Blunt) needs a ride home to Delaware for Christmas, and hooks up with Guy (Ashton Holmes), who has pinned a car-share offer to a college notice board. They get sideswiped into a snowdrift by a passing car, and stuck overnight in the middle of nowhere – with death by exposure a real possibility, and scariness ramped up by passing ghost monks, 1953 murder victims and a bad cop (Martin Donovan) with a freezing touch.
Though buried by a throwaway theatrical release, Wind Chill is a workable spook story lifted by sterling performances from its tipped-for-stardom leads: Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) and Holmes (A History of Violence) carry the picture by themselves, and the weird arc of their testy, slightly ‘off’ relationship is more interesting than the zombie popsicle stuff.