Centigrade comes from the long line of confined-space thrillers, in which most — if not all — of the movie takes place in one cramped spot (e.g., Buried, Phone Booth, Devil, Cube and ATM). The difference with Centigrade is being inspired by true events — no supernatural elements here, folks!

Set in 2002, the film opens with very pregnant author Naomi (Genesis Rodriguez, Tusk) and her husband, Matt (Vincent Piazza, Rocket Science), waking up inside their car, only to find it snowed under. See, touring through Norway, they chose to pull over due to freezing rain while waiting for the storm to pass. Oh, it passed, all right, leaving impenetrable precipitation behind.

Frustration boils as panic almost immediately sets in; complains Matt, who isn’t helping matters, “Can you not be so defeatist?” (Also not a calm influence? The score’s simple tinkling of a lone piano key.)

Given the demands of Centigrade’s story and setting, if you’re going to be trapped with two people for weeks — even if compressed into 89 minutes — you’d damn well better like them. In his first feature, director Brendan Walsh (TV’s Nurse Jackie) seems to make a rookie mistake by not exactly ingratiating the couple with viewers right off the bat, but this proves to be wise; with both being so flawed and fraught with alarm, the tension between them starts at a level higher than normal. While it may wane from there, one part remains constant: wondering what you would do. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

After everything from 1992’s Romper Stomper to 2005’s errant hotel phone, if you still haven’t learned Russell Crowe is not to be fucked with, let Unhinged serve as your zero-ambiguity lesson.

His newly divorced Tom is, after all, a guy who hammers in the skulls of his ex-wife and her new man in the film’s opening scene, and then burns down her house. (Take that, queen of the harpies!) With depression-level girth, a hair-trigger temper and a Ford truck to compensate, Tom is not in the mood to be honked at mere hours later by Rachel (Caren Pistorius, Mortal Engines), a freshly single suburban mom just trying to get her teenage son (Gabriel Bateman, Lights Out) to school on time.

So, when at a stoplight, she impatiently blares her horn and doubles down on her refusal to apologize, Tom takes road rage to a vengeful extreme, not only upending all traffic laws in the process, but playing serial killer with her friends and family in between rounds of their cat-and-mouse pursuits. His methods of dispatch — such as tying a man to a roller chair and setting it aflame before shoving it toward a cop — lean into the slasher territory of Jason Voorhees at his most practical (and unintentionally comical).

Directed with too loose of a grip on the part of Derrick Borte (H8RZ) to offer true escapism — his attention to spatial awareness is kneecapped and even the foreshadowing has foreshadowing — Unhinged arrives in the tradition of such white-knuckle, forward-momentum classics as Duel and Speed. Note the operative word is “tradition,” because Unhinged isn’t in their league; it belongs further down, even underneath your The Call and Premium Rush, but maybe pulling alongside the most recent direct-to-video sequel for Joy Ride if it knows how to parallel park.

Remove the A-list luster of Crowe — who’s coasting, anyway — and its below-averageness as vehicular entertainment becomes all the more apparent. That’s disappointing because when they work, simple films of a breathless chase tend to be real crowd-pleasers.

Here’s your courtesy tap: Move along. —Rod Lott