Big Driver (2014)

Tess Thorne, a successful crime-mystery writer, is invited to a library in upstate Massachusetts for a meet-and-greet with fans, but is scared of flying so drives to engagements even long distances away. After the event, Ramona, the organizer, suggests a quicker route home for Tess. However, it takes her via a remote rural location where her car runs over nail-studded planks lying across the road, puncturing her tire. It happens by an abandoned gas station and, having no signal for her cell phone, Tess hopes that someone will stop to help. A man in a pickup stops and offers to assist. At first he seems eager to help, but soon turns nasty. He hits her, then brutally rapes and beats her, before choking her into unconsciousness. He drags her into a culvert and leaves her there. When she recovers the man is gone, and she finds three female bodies in the culvert, all victims (she assumes) of the same man. Tess leaves to find help, but as she walks she worries that the attack will create a scandal – she will be attacked in the media for “asking for it” and blamed.

She will be re-traumatized and her reputation will be destroyed. She comes across a convenience store and calls a limousine service for a ride home. She decides that she cannot tell anyone what happened. When Tess is safely home, she decides to avenge herself. She receives a call from Betsy, a waitress at the Stagger Inn, telling her that her car has been parked there. The pair form a bond by both being victims of violence. Tess later realizes that Ramona is her attacker’s mother and accomplice, who sought her out and invited her to the library, then led her into her son’s trap. That night, she goes to Ramona’s house with a gun to confront her. Ramona denies all knowledge and during a struggle Ramona wrestles the gun from Tess, then reveals that she helped orchestrate the attack and pulls the trigger, firing on an empty chamber.