"Why did you stop?"

I hope everyone had a bountiful Thanksgiving and an even more bountiful Black Friday. From my perspective, there's nothing better than a day of gluttony and sloth, followed immediately by a day of greed and covetousness. Did you see all the stampedes and brawls on the news? Warms my heart. It truly is the most wonderful time of year, and it really gets me pumped about that other holiday nightmare -- travelling with family.  That's why this week's Thursday Thriller is the 2003 film Dead End, starring Ray Wise, and helmed by writer/director team Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa. 

Wise plays Frank Harrington,  a dad who grows bored with his usual route to the in-laws for Christmas and decides to take a back road and cut across the butt end of nowhere. Like a lot of dads, he may be a little square and out of touch with his son's musical tastes, but you can tell he's a good man, because he stops the car to help a mysterious Lady In White (Amber Smith) who's wandering around in the woods with her baby.

Next thing you know, daughter's boyfriend Brad (William Rosenfeld) is being hauled away in the back of a hearse, only to be found later as a big pile of glop in the middle of the highway.

As the Harrington's continue their journey, things keep getting weirder, and tensions run higher. Frank admits he's always hated wife Laura's mother, daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) announces she's pregnant, son Richard (Mick Cain) confesses his marijuana use, and Laura (Lin Shaye) goes generally bananas and shoots Frank with a shotgun. 

There are some good performances and lots of darkly funny moments, but Dead End isn't a great movie so much as it is a great opportunity to watch a family turn on each other under strange and bloody circumstances. Isn't that what the holidays are really all about? 

Be warned: there's a lame cliché of a twist ending, so you might like the movie a little better if you turn it off five minutes before it's over. Like the death of Spinal Tap's drummer, some mysteries are best left unsolved.

Dead End streams on Amazon Prime, which you might already have if you didn't want to pay shipping on Cyber Monday.