New Release Review - "The Man In The White Van"

1970s-set thriller The Man in the White Van purports to be inspired by real-life events. Some reviews have suggested it draws on the crimes of serial killer Billy Mansfield, though the villain's identity remains ambiguous throughout the film (likely to leave things open for a possible sequel). I suspect if director Warren Skeels were honest, he would admit to his primary influence being John Carpenter's Halloween. Like that classic, Skeel's narrative feature debut takes place in the final days of October and is centred on a virginal teenage girl being stalked by an antagonist who seems to have randomly chosen her as his target (let's not forget the sister/brother stuff didn't pop up until Halloween II). As the title implies, the villain here spends most of his screen time unseen behind the wheel of a white van, and the stalking scenes recall the early segments of Halloween in which Michael Myers pursues Laurie Strode while commandeering a stolen station wagon. The van becomes something of a villain itself, like the eponymous Plymouth Fury of Carpenter's Christine, the truck from Spielberg's Duel, or the car from, well, The Car. Were it not for a series of flashbacks, we might wonder if there really is a human driver behind that foggy windscreen.