Trapped Inn

You can check out any time you like...

Odds are most reviewers will quickly get to name-checking John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), co-written with Debra Hill, and Frank Darabont’s The Mist (2002), based on a Stephen King novella, because when in doubt, look for a familiar comparison. But writer-director Leah Sturgis’ Trapped Inn, which is both ambitious and admirably stripped down, is very much its own kettle of things that go bump in the haze.

The place: Andora, on the French side of the formidable Pyrenees mountain range, which straddles the border of France and Spain. The dramatis personae: a group of American professional cyclists whose coach (Brian Gross) is prepping them for a grueling race. What better way to toughen them up pronto than some high-altitude training; when they get back to ground level, it’ll be a breeze. Coach and team will be spending the duration in a nice auberge run by the charming Jean-Luc (Tal Serror) and his “lovely partner” Natalie (Marine Loren a.k.a. Laurel Coeur), with the isolation keeping from them the distractions of girlfriends and bar hopping.