Lucy (Liz DiPrinzio) and Gina (Taya Asimos) have recently suffered a traumatic experience: their friend Sarah has committed suicide and neither of them know the reason why, it has hit them completely out of the blue. At the graveside the preacher (Cliff Poche) ends the service with some cryptic words and Lucy and Gina head off to their car. Unfortunately, it won't start and Gina, the driver, asks Lucy to fetch the preacher so he can give them a "jump", but when she gets out to search for him, he has disappeared. Suddenly the car starts and they are able to go on their way, but as night draws in, there's a nasty surprise waiting for them both...
The Twilight Zone is the main source of inspiration for this short which ends up looking fairly professional, considering its obvious low budget and expected amateur dramatics. Like its television counterpart, The Wanderer (nothing to do with the Dion hit single) is a simple morality tale, but unlike the original it has little to say about society - no social comment dressed up in the supernatural or science fictional here. We can tell from the outset that our two heroines are headed for doom, but the actual nature is kept a mystery for much of the admittedly brief running time.
On the road in the dark, Lucy and Gina are abruptly halted in their journey when a figure clad in white (Erika Smith) appears in the middle of their path. Lucy gets out to remonstrate with her, and is taken aback by the woman's cheek when she asks for a lift. Gina agrees, but there's something not quite right about the way this newcomer is asking uncomfortable questions, and also the way she styles her black hair to fall over her face like a ghost in a Japanese or South Korean horror movie. There's a twist coming - well, more a revelation than a twist - that puts the friendship at the heart of the tale into question, and if The Wanderer resembles the meeker middle part of one of those horror movie anthologies rather than a TV episode, then there's nothing wrong with that.
[Anyone interested in knowing more about this movie can check out the official site here.]
