Octane (film)

A man and woman posing as paramedics assists a man in an overturned car on a freeway. As an ambulance approaches, the woman panics, taping the man's mouth shut and pulling him from the car before speeding away. Meanwhile, single mother Senga and her 15-year-old daughter Natasha 'Nat' are on a six-hour overnight drive home, following a visit to Marek, Nat's father, for her birthday. En route, they pass by the crash, and Senga notices a strange man and woman photographing the scene; as Senga watches them, the man turns his camera and photographs her.

Unnerved and exhausted, Senga nearly falls asleep while driving, and decides to stop at a truck stop diner. Outside, Nat meets a young female backpacker and offers her a ride. Senga is visibly disturbed by the backpacker and the strange ambient CD she plays in the car. They drop her at a picnic area and when they return seconds later to return the CD she left behind, she seems to have disappeared. Shortly after, Nat convinces her mother to return to the diner, so that she can get her birthday present from her father. Already stressed from the long drive, Senga is furious when she discovers that Marek has bought Nat tickets to a concert that she has refused to allow her to attend. After a heated argument, Nat gets into an RV with the backpacker and a strange couple.

Senga solicits the assistance of a police officer, but when she seems unhelpful, goes after the RV herself, tailing the officer who had just left the diner. The police officer meets up with the inhabitants of the RV. Senga breaks into their RV and discovers a number of strange things, including thermoses full of blood and videos of young girls talking about their past lives. She escapes the RV before anyone returns, but once back on the road, The Backpacker reveals herself to be hiding in the backseat. She strangles Senga, causing her to crash.

In the back of an oil tanker, Nat parties with the Backpacker and a young man, who tell her about their group and their enigmatic leader. Senga is woken by the recovery man, a disturbed drifter who cruises highways in his tow truck, who insists that Senga come with him. In his car, she finds a picture of a girl she saw in a video in the RV. The recovery man informs Senga that the girl is Christine, his dead sister. Senga is taken to a police station, where she reports Nat's disappearance. The police are less than helpful, and, in frustration, she asks them to call Marek. The man who answers Marek's phone tells the police that Senga is on medication, and that Nat has been with him all weekend.

Back at the truck stop, Senga sees the man and woman she had seen earlier photographing the car accident. As her paranoia mounts, she suspects them to be involved with Nat's disappearance, and attacks the woman, resulting in her being kicked out of the diner. While hiding in a hallway, she encounters the woman with two male cult members, and flees outside. As they leave the truck stop, the recovery man follows them in his truck; Senga follows behind, ending up at an abandoned research facility.

While Nat meets the Father, the recovery man detonates a bomb, killing several of the cult members. Before the Father can initiate Nat, Senga attacks him. Mother and daughter flee in different directions, with Senga being pursued by the backpacker and Nat being placated by the Father, who uses a loudspeaker to talk to her. During the fight, the Father reveals that Senga wanted to have an abortion when she discovered she was pregnant with Nat. The shock of this revelation leaves Senga in a near catatonic state.

The recovery man pulls her out of her stupor by showing her Marek's body. Senga uses this information to try to demonstrate to Nat how evil her new friends are. While mother and daughter try to escape, the recovery man and the Father wrestle; when the Father bites the recovery man's tongue and spits it out, Senga detonates his last bomb, killing them both. Senga and Nat leave, continuing their drive home in daylight. When they stop at a gas station, they return to their car to find a razor blade — the Father's calling card — attached to the rear view mirror.

Director Marcus Adams recalled producers Alistair MacLean-Clark and Basil Stephens approaching him to direct the film in 2001, which at that time was "essentially a vampire movie," which had been in development for around five years.[6] Adams spent one year rewriting elements of the script with screenwriter Stephen Volk; this included altering the ending as well as subduing the overt vampire plot of the film, resulting in what Adams envisioned as "faint" vampire film, where vampires functioned more as a metaphor than as literal beings.[6]

Though set in the United States,[6] Octane was shot in Luxembourg on a budget of US$10.5 million, culled from five films investors.[1] Principal photography for the film began on 3 June 2002.[7] The production company chose Luxembourg as a shooting location based on a 12 km (7.5 mi) stretch of highway that had been recently paved and had yet to open to the public, which made it a feasible location for the film's numerous road sequences.[6] Because the film is set in the United States, a team of contractors were appointed to paint yellow and white dividing lines on the road for it to appear as an American highway.[6] A total of thirty American cars and fifteen American semi-trucks were imported from both England and the United States to be used in the film.[6]

The film's production company, the independent United Kingdom distributor Random Harvest, sold the film for distribution to Buena Vista International under their subsidiary Four Horseman Films.[1]

Octane premiered in the United States at the CineVegas Film Festival on 25 June 2003.[5] It was subsequently given a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on 14 November 2003.[2]

Octane's soundtrack consists mainly of techno, ambient and ambient industrial music by Orbital. Though Orbital had contributed tracks to other feature films, this was the first film for which they composed the full soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on 28 October 2003.[13]

• Official website
• Octane at IMDb