On a calm night in an average city a hardworking URYDE driver, Brandon, picks up just another fare, Judd. Using interactions that blur the lines between the technological world and the physical one, Judd explains a messy breakup. Brandon offers an empathetic ear and a sympathetic heart to his new friend to help him pick up the pieces. Aggregated profiles, algorithms, links, likes and comments bring people closer. But how close is too close?

End Trip is a rideshare thriller from writer/director/actor Aaron Jay Rome. It’s not the first film to be based on the concept behind Lyft and Uber and it’s not hard to see why. The idea that it might be a mistake entrusting where we end up at the end of the night to a loosely-vetted network of independent contractors is something that most of us have at least considered at some point and that danger is at least as present for those that take up this sort of work for a bit of extra cash.

Brandon has been working as a URYDE driver for a few months. Things are going well; he’s in a stable relationship and his friendly, charismatic demeanor makes him a natural fit for a job that has him interacting with so many different types of people. He’s just starting his late night shift when he picks up Judd, whose rocky relationship has led him to seek out a driver to simply drive around and provide a bit of conversation and therapy. End Trip has a non-linear narrative structure and interspersed between the events of Brandon’s night is his girlfriend Stef’s morning, who has awoken to discover a strange man in her bed that claims that he’s Brandon.

End Trip is driven by its dramatic irony, in a similar vein to 2014’s Creep, and leverages the viewer’s anticipation of when our characters will come to realize what we already know to fuel a prevailing unease that persists even throughout its moments of warmth and humor. There’s a surprising amount of levity to a large swath of this film, in which Stef’s home invasion and kidnapping problems take a backseat to Brandon and Judd getting into hijinks and becoming quick besties. Both plotlines are given roughly equal screen time, but while Brandon’s storyline has some great dialog and character development, it takes its time in moving the plot forward and it started to feel as though it could have been edited slightly to give Stef’s storyline more room to breathe.

This is a very tightly-structured film, with a small cast pulling most of the weight and everyone involved turns in top quality work with performances that are understated and nuanced but that can still go to a more forceful, dramatic place when necessary. The friendship that develops between Brandon and Judd feels honest, with both characters possessing a similar charisma and vulnerability that bolsters their chemistry. Stef is what you want to see out of a horror movie heroine that isn’t just fodder for a body count. She’s calm and collected, able to manipulate the situation to her advantage, but isn’t so detached from reality that she can’t have her moments of palpable anguish. Brandon’s doppelganger is probably the highlight of the film, deftly aping Brandon’s mannerisms and creating a character with a unique brand of psychosis. A character with a tenuous grasp on their identity, content to play their role of captor only so long as his captive will humor his charade.

End Trip is great experience if you’re looking for something unnerving, for that sense of tension that arises from knowing that the calm must eventually subside, that there is a plot thread left hanging and that any sense of peace is fleeting until it has been resolved. In a world where we place ourselves at the mercy of strangers, strapping into moving prisons cruising down darkened, empty streets, maybe it’s time to think about taking the bus.