Clock face gas pumps?

I don't think the story is intended to take place in the US. At the beginning of the movie when they are searching for a missing child, it states "Somewhere in Eastern Europe." Much of the rural area of eastern Europe is indeed about 50 years behind the times due to the long night of Soviet domination and repression. I was in Ukraine in 2004 and it was like going back in time in some of the small villages where they were still using old, black rotary telephones and you had to call the operator to make a long distance call.