The Man in the White Van slots into the mini-1970s horror revival that’s been going on for a while now. See the abduction horror of The Black Phone, or the folk horror of Midsommar, or the slightly Exorcist-y vibe of The Dark and the Wicked, or the Hammer-esque The Reckoning, just a few among many.
That said, this movie is for people who don’t remember the 1970s and don’t particularly want to. Who find it all a bit long ago and perhaps a bit lank and unclean. Maybe that’s writer/director Warren Skeels’s take on the decade. It’s definitely how his movie comes across.
Loosely based on the real life case of Florida serial killer Billy Mansfield Jr, who killed five women and girls, it tells the story of their abduction – Skeels gives us thumbnails of each abductee – though the focus is on Annie (Madison Wolfe), whose time will eventually come.
In the meantime rebellious teenage rock-chick Annie is having a hard time at home – her mother (Ali Larter) obviously favours her prissy sister Margaret (Brec Bassinger), and so does dad (Sean Astin). Annie is not so rebellious that she doesn’t thank god for her life before going to bed, but her prayers include thank yous for “Creedence, Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers”. Her best friend is the only significant non-white person in the movie – Patty (Skai Jackson).
Skeels structures his movie by working his way through the decade from 1970 to 1975, one screaming girl per year hauled into the titular white van. Interspersed with these flashback-abductions are bulletins from Annie’s present, where family disinterest in anything Annie has to say come to head when she starts voicing suspicions about a white van lurking in the vicinity of their usefully remote family home.
Skeels gives the van a little of the personality that Steven Spielberg gave his malevolent truck in his breakthrough, Duel, but for the most part he dials back the 1970s stuff – though a song by The Partridge Family figures semi-prominently and his fascination with the breasts of the victims, that is also very 1970s.
In spite of his voyeuristic camera at key moments, there’s a wholesome, almost Hallmark quality to the way Skeels shoots. The difficult teen coming-of-ager and the abduction horror movie are not natural bedfellows and they vie for supremacy until Skeels eventually brings them together when the van makes its move and Annie has to fall back on family for help.
It’s nicely played. Wolfe takes the girl-next-door approach, and Brec Bassinger as her fairly horrible sister manages to make her mark in a role that’s hard to make significant. As the parents, Larter and Astin don’t have a ton to do but they bring a bit of colour – she reminding us of horror antecedents like Final Destination, he the feelgood of movies like The Goonies, or maybe Stranger Things. As Annie’s BFF, Jackson takes her medicine valiantly in a nothing role – explication is Jackson’s task and she performs it uncomplainingly. Cutting through the supporting roles is Addison Riecke as Annie’s high school’s queen bitch.
It all culminates in one of those Halloween parties where everyone is in fancy dress and having fun while the unseen man in the van waits for his moment to strike. Followed shortly afterwards by the definitive final climax in what looks initially like a case of bad pacing but maybe is more about confounding expectations.
Mark it down as a horror film for a teenage, possibly female, audience. It doesn’t want to alienate them with too much period detail and doesn’t. In the end the relationships are the important thing, particularly the one between Annie and Margaret, and that stuff’s timeless.
The Man in the White Van – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
