It’s a bold move tackling an “inspired by a true story” on your debut feature, but that challenge was one director Warren Skeels tackles with a bold eye and compelling narrative storytelling with The Man in the White Van. Utilizing a somewhat non-linear timeline and strongly written lead characters, Skeels and co-writer Sharon Y. Cobb collaborated well to build the world of 15-year-old Annie (Madison Wolfe, The Conjuring 2) and her sister Margaret (Brec Bassinger, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged), sisters who butt heads on nearly everything until the time comes when they’re forced to work together to escape the stranger who has been stalking Annie.  

Annie’s story is set in Florida in 1974, but the film spans the years of brutality that the titular “Man” inflicts upon his victims, with a reverse countdown to what we assume to be his first attempted abduction. The film combines the bleak encounters between the killer and his victims over the years, with Annie’s idyllic-seeming home life — an evangelical mother (Ali Larter), a loving but often absent father (Sean Astin), the “perfect” older sister Margaret, and all but forgotten youngest son Daniel (Gavin Warren). At the core of this family’s story is the reluctance to believe Annie once she begins to see the white van following her around their small town. Annie is presented as a kind of “girl who cried wolf,” with stories that seem too far-fetched to believe, despite her insistence of the truth.

It’s interesting to watch this dynamic as someone who was raised with an insanely strong enmeshed in the concept of “stranger danger,” where every man is to be feared, every person meant to be suspect of malice. Given my own experiences, it’s always fascinating to watch a film like this set in the 70s. There’s a reason the 70s and 80s were such prolific decades for serial killers to strike. There was far less helicopter parenting and far more latchkey kids, especially in small communities like the one shown in The Man in the White Van. When Annie begins to feel threatened by the Man in the white van following her every move, her family quickly dismisses her worries as exaggeration and imagination. Up until the final showdown, Annie suffers alone with the knowledge that there is a predator watching her every move.

The stylistic choices and strong performances are what elevate The Man in the White Van from a generic indie serial killer film to something more captivating. Skeels examines the true-crime accounts of the abhorrent killings of five women and girls by Billy Mansfield between the years of 1975 and 1980 with a non-sensational lens. He and Cobb make the smart decision to anchor the story with Annie and avoid gratuitous violence when in the voyeuristic scenes of the Man’s POV while creeping from the future toward the first kill.

The Man in the White Van is nestled in the sweet spot of horror where squeamish viewers won’t be repelled by over-the-top gore and genre-lovers will find a fix in the subtlety of smart and tense set pieces.  

💀 💀 💀/5