At the tense final moment of a long girls’ night, Rust Creek starts like a warning narrative that may be told in low voices. Have you heard about the girl whose GPS led her into the hard Kentucky bush on an unsafe rough road? Two-armed, mocking natives attack her as she tries to gain her bearings. Nonetheless, Sawyer (Hermione Corfield) does not agree to be the main character in misery or allow her plot to end in a small grave. Even if it involves entering into an uneasy union with a lonely meth cook, she will fight back, run away, and do whatever it needs to stay alive.
The two-armed natives, Hollister (Micah Hauptman) and Buck (Daniel R. Hill), pursue the heroine. Yet Sawyer’s urgent running through the forest takes up very little of the time in this strange thriller. In reality, she is taken in by a cousin of this wicked family, Lowell (Jay Paulson), an unknown helper who hides her from her potential killers by locking her to the wall of his lorry. Though doubted by his plans, Sawyer develops a strange relationship with Lowell as she helps him create meth for Hollister’s next sale. In order to bring an intense police investigation.
The director (Jen McGowan) gives the impression that Rust Creek is a real-life film happening live in front of us with its quiet tone and genuine movie design. Sawyer is wearing sneakers, a sweater, basic sweatpants, and no makeup while travelling to Washington, D.C. She is an intelligent young woman, so when a staring Buck and a cheering Hollister come near her SUV, she is respectful in the sense that women are usually told to be when they are by themselves with unknown men. But when Hollister invites her back to their residence, she rejects. Sawyer disregards courtesy and doesn’t wait for him to assault her.
Both sides are injured after the short fight. When she strikes the boys to the ground, she knows there’s no time to get back to her car, so she hides herself. This part of the movie doesn’t seem like featuring a Hollywood heroism. Sawyer is calm but not aggressive, timid but not dumb. She drags a damaged leg after her, taking care of the obvious wound in a stream.
In general, simple images offer a plot that doesn’t require words to be spoken. The wedding band on a single man’s finger, a damaged picture frame in the burned-out cabin—these things tell us all we need to know. Similarly, a disregarded footprint or a moment in which Sawyer silently cuts off her perfectly shaped artificial nails on a hard rock gives us just enough to look forward to what is next in line.
As the story rushes toward its terrible ending, McGowan crafts a sense of terror that leaves viewers gasping in horror. As Sawyer and Lowell are driven to act, the pressure is stronger than the harmful fumes in that truck. Nonetheless, the more quiet, personal moments between them are what actually makes the movie unique.
 Lowell and Sawyer have a truly appealing film-based relationship. In order to look at these two unusual friends relate more, I found myself wishing the movie was a bit long. After Lowell originally stands up for her, Sawyer’s first—and true— suspicion of him starts to reduce. He pushes her to face her own beliefs against ignorant rural individuals like himself, even as she takes the opportunity of putting her trust in him. Their talk about condescension and chemistry is both hard and strangely beautiful. They have true interest and a desire of science, with meth cooking simply proving a strange point where those interests meet. The sweetness of this bloody movie in such cases is nearly amusing. But with Hollister and Buck still searching for them, we know this soft unity can’t last—which gives each instance an extra edge.
In the end, Rust Creek is a satisfying movie that takes its audience in the dangerous countryside with a lady who is brave but not exactly unstoppable. McGowan increases the suspense around Sawyer’s encounter by putting the first act on reality. As the wolves get nearer, we wait, with our hearts beating with hope, our breaths holding, and our pulses fast.
