Existing somewhere in the cracks between Steven Spielberg’s Duel and Wes Craven’s Scream lies Joy Ride (or Road Kill, if you lived in a country where joy riding meant something else), a teeth gritting thriller that explores the dual dangers of both the sparse, desert highways of America and the risk on playing a stupid practical joke on someone who definitely shouldn’t be fucked with. Directed by John Dahl, who usually dallied with neo-noir such as Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, and featuring a script co-written by J.J. Abrams, Joy Ride seems to have been somewhat forgotten despite being something of a riff on films like The Hitcher for a new generation. Featuring a hip cast in the form of Paul Walker, Steve Zahn and Leelee Sobieski and delivering a truly menacing villain in the form of the calculating, hulking Rusty Nail, I’ve never really been able to fathom why this film doesn’t get more outpourings of love – especially when it does such a bang up job of giving you many reasons – beyond butt-ache – to put off any long distance driving trips you may have planned…
College student and all round nice guy Lewis Thomas has decided to skip flying home for the holidays in favour of cashing in his plane ticket, buying a car and driving California to Colorado to pick up his childhood friend, Venna, whom he’s had a crush on since forever. However, as he racks up some serious mileage in his second-hand car, he gets a call from his parents pleading for him to make a detour out of his way to head to Salt Lake City instead. It seems that his black sheep brother, Fuller, has gotten himself arrested and needs bailing out, but instead of being dropped off anywhere, the troublesome older sibling insists on tagging alone for the ride and even has an old CB radio installed in Lewis’ car to say thanks.
Of course, the real reason Fuller wants a CB radio is to listen in on various truckers shooting the shit and giving tips about any police speed traps that might spot, but as Fuller is something of a mischievous type, he soon hits upon the idea of using it to play a prank. Having Lewis pretend to be a lonely – and unavoidably horny – female trucker with the handle “Candy Cane”, the two manage to trick a trucker nicknamed Rusty Nail into a romantic meeting at a motel where they assume hilarity will ensue. However, in the cold light of day, they find that not only is Rusty Nail not exactly partial to the odd practical joke, but his rage resulted him removing the jaw of the jackass staying in the room he was tricked into kocking at.
Understandably shaken by the ordeal, Lewis and Fuller are soon pursued by the vengful trucker only to barely escape with their lives; however, after thinking that the worst is finally behind them, the brothers go on to pick up Venna and continue on their journey. Of course, Rusty Nail isn’t done with them, not by a long shot, and as their ordeal shifts into fourth gear, the mad trucker works overtime to show them the error of their ways.
When it comes to short, lean, horror-tinged thrillers, it feels like a while since we’ve seen anything like Joy Ride, which is a shame because knuckle-gnawing misadventures set in the middle of nowhere that contains a shitload of driving usually tends to have quite a decent pedigree. Ride With The Devil, Duel, The Hitcher, Breakdown, there’s something about some hapless everyman stuck in a rental car in the middle of nowhere finding themselves at the mercy of some blacktop-based maniac that induces a different type of dread and John Dahl manages to not only harness the feel of the classics, the script also feels like a close cousin of the 90s slasher craze thanks to a couple of similarities with entries like I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Helping matters immensely is the fact that Joy Ride is one of those rare movies that’s smart enough not to overstay its welcome and as a result is a tight as a damn drum. Everything ticks along with Hitchcockian precision as all the factors that will eventually lead to automotive disaster fall into place with impressive neatness. Establishing that Lewis is easily led falls, domino style, into Fuller being a dick, the buying of the CB and that triggering practical with liquid smoothness and even the severity and terrible logic of Rusty Nail’s vengeance is given ample time to breathe and maneuver as to avoid making the horror stuff feel weirdly instantaneous and one note. When the film needs to make an impact, it does so without resorting to wild gimmicks – hearing the attack on the guy in the hotel room and then seeing the jawless aftermath of Rusty Nail’s victim later is far more haunting than witnessing the act of violence itself.
Aiding Dahl immensely is his cast who manage to avoid having their characters tumble into the pit of being bland or even annoying. Not to side with the truck driving, jaw-removing psychopath, but the prank that our leads play genuinely deserves some sort of payback, but in the hands of Paul Walker’s megawatt smile and Steve Zahn’s ability to make the potentially unlikable Fuller an affable enough dude despite the fact that his man-child antics sees him cause all this chaos and even hit on his brother’s crush. Even Leelee Sobieski manages to prevent Venna from becoming a one-note damsel in distress despite admittedly spending the climax sellotaped in front of a shotgun and the fact that we have a trio of three dimensional leads means that when Rusty Nail tightens his grimy grip, you actually feel a sizable pang of fear for them.
Oh yes. Rusty Nail. Benefiting hugely from his attendance at the Trucker From Duel’s School Of Identity Hiding, the ubiquitous motorist proves to be something of peach of a villain, especially when you find that his distinctive vocals have been provided by none other than the infamous drawl of Ted Levine. Delivering each threat like he’s grinding down a wedge of chewing tobacco and drawing out every vowel like he’s literally squeezing the life put of it (“Caaaaandy Caaaaane”), he proves to be a fiendishly tricksy antagonist which allows the script to deliver some truly edge of the seat stuff. Setpieces and fakeouts involving ominous corn fields, lethal booby traps, ticking clocks and the fact that there’s a truly unhealthy amount of motels in America that’s virtually piled on top of one another when you’re trying to find the right one, make the movie truly rip roaring stuff that’ll have you hissing panicked encouragement under your breath at regular intervals.
To be fair, it’s something of a minor crime that the continuing crimes of Rusty Nail took a sudden left turn into DTV territory that inevitably switched out the smarts and artistry in favour of clumsy plotting and gore; but taken as a standalone, one way trip into anxiety-ville, Rusty Nail proves to be one mean mothertrucker.
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