Big Nothing 2006

In a quiet Oregon town, a brutal serial killer nicknamed the “Oregon undertaker” has been prowling the nights, targeting and mutilating young women. Charlie David Schwimmer is an ex-teacher who is fired on his first day as a call center worker, a stumble that nudges him into a darker circle. His coworker Gus Simon Pegg extends an invitation to band together on a scheme to blackmail a reverend whose visits to porn websites have left behind a trail of incriminating evidence. The plan intrigues Charlie, and it catches the attention of Josie McBroom Alice Eve, a teenage pageant queen who overhears their conversation and insists on joining the caper.

The trio hatches a dangerous plot: they will summon the reverend to demand a hefty blackmail payment. Gus heads to the reverend’s house, while Charlie slips into a bar to fashion an alibi—claiming Gus is at a gas station. But the bar is a trap of its own when the gas station attendant he mentions happens to be in the same room, blowing the ruse. Realizing the ruse has collapsed, Charlie hurries to the reverend’s house only to confront a shocking scene: the reverend’s body already lies there, and Gus is nowhere to be found. In a split-second decision, Charlie disposes of the body in a septic tank. It later emerges that the reverend had shot Gus in the leg, and Gus knocked him out with a vase, meaning the reverend was still alive when Charlie sealed him away.

As the trio discovers videos showing the reverend torturing and killing a young woman, the mood tightens with fear and ambition. A deputy sheriff arrives at the house in search of the reverend, reporting the man has been found dead with three gunshot wounds. The deputy leaves, but not before noticing drag marks leading to the septic tank. Gus sweeps him aside with a vase, and the reverend’s wife Mimi Rogers appears, gripping a gun and threatening the trio. Josie rushes in, attacking the wife with an axe. The deputy attempts to escape through a window but falls, fatally ending his pursuit.

Charlie, Gus, and Josie flee, narrowly avoiding a car crash with a bulky man they nearly collide with on the road. They push onward to their disposal point, only to discover that one of the bodies is missing. They swing back to confront the reality, and the chase leads them back to the Reverend’s home where the wife is found to have survived the encounter. The pursuing authorities close in—a special agent Jon Polito joins the scene and soon, in the tense exchange in the waiting room, the truth about Josie unfolds: she is the Wyoming Widow, a killer who ingratiates herself with men before poisoning them with a concentrated dose of thallium-laced whiskey.

To prove her claim, Josie drinks from a flask to show her innocence, but the agent proves to be shrewd and escapes amid the distraction. Gus attempts a getaway with the money, but the agent shoots him dead and claims the prize. Meanwhile, Charlie’s wife finds the deputy’s badge in Charlie’s coat and drives to a bridge to discard it, fearing the worst. The agent persists, trailing the trio as they move toward a tar pit for final disposal. In a startling twist, Josie reveals her true identity once again, and the trio are forced to confront a choice they never anticipated.

Josie holds Charlie at gunpoint, offering him a grim choice between a bullet or the poisoned whiskey. Charlie, trying to maintain a shred of humanity, jokes, “don’t spend all the money in one place,” then drinks the whiskey and collapses. The bag they had been hauling—the money—turns out to be filled with nothing but Charlie’s daughter’s stuffed animals, a cruel reminder of what’s been sacrificed. Charlie dies, and the last image shifts to his daughter at home, drawing beside stacks of money, a haunting symbol of unchecked greed.

Josie, undeterred, tries to hitch a ride away from Oregon. An old man agrees to give her a lift, but as he heads to the back to “double-check on something,” Josie quietly opens a second flask of poisoned whiskey. The old man covers his bloody leg with a tarpaulin and slips back into the cab, driving away with Josie. The film ends on a bleak note, with a car plate from Oregon seen on the rear of the truck, implying that the cycle of crime might begin again in the same dusty, unsettled landscape.

Throughout, the tension stays tightly wound as ordinary lives collide with a web of crime, deception, and desperation. The characters’ choices ripple outward, revealing the fragility of trust and the quick escalation from petty scheming to lethal consequences. The stark, unflinching tone keeps the narrative moving, inviting viewers to weigh the cost of greed and the toll of violence in a place where every small-town face could be hiding a dangerous secret.