Customer Reviews

Joy Ride [VHS]

5 star:		(131)
4 star:		(78)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I'm happy to report that Joy Ride is NOT just another teen slasher movie, nor is it a Scream clone, instead, it is one of the better thriller/horror film that came out of Hollywood recently. The Thomas brothers while traveling towards New Jersey decided to pull a prank on a stranger by using a CB radio, posing as a female they agreed to a midnight rendezvous with a trucker who calls himself 'Rusty Nail.' Hoping to get a good laugh, the brothers found instead that the joke is on them as they flees from the psychotic stranger out for revenge.

What makes Joy Ride scary is its believability, this kind of thing can actually happen, probably not to the extreme as portrayed in the film, but people do play jokes on each other constantly, and some do get carried away. Composed of a relatively young cast, Steve Zahn (Fuller Thomas,) Paul Walker (Lewis Thomas) and Leelee Sobieski (Venna) did a good job keeping the audiences attention glued to the screen, the pacing was actually well done because there was not a dull moment on this road trip. Unfortunately, with this genre there is usually little character development, which is true for Joy Ride, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing here.

Joy Ride was an entertaining and short movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, the direction was tight and the script was decent, it's a great film for adults and teenager alike. Just remember, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and do unto others as you would have them done to you.

In "Joy Ride", the Director John Dahl (Last Seduction, Red Rock West, Rounders)pounds you right from the beginning and never lets up.

It's "Duel" updated for the millenium and for a contemporary audience.

Two brothers, Paul Walker (Fast and The Furious) and Steve Zahn (Shattered Glass) take a road trip to pick up Walker's college girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski).

Using a CB radio, they play a practical joke on a trucker who turns out to be the biggest movie big rig psycho since Rutger Hauer planted a finger in C.Thomas Howell's french fries.


What the trucker, whose CB handle is "Rusty Nail" does to exact revenge keeps the audience on edge for the film's 97 minutes.

(Note: one of the sequences in the chillingly directed and edited climax cribs gleefully from "Silence of the Lambs")

Dahl pulls of the the difficult challenge of blending scares with a few laughs with little effort..he's a wildly talented director with a taste for hip, off beat material.


Dahl directs from a script by JJ Abrams ("Lost") and Clay Tarver

The voice of "Rusty Nail" is supplied by the great Ted Levine.

Note: not long before "Joy Ride" began shooting, the studio decided it wanted a different ending, supposedly a few alternate endings were shot, one of which, running 29 minutes, is included on the DVD which also includes Eric Roberts vocal audition as Rusty Nail...Roberts obviously lost the gig to Levine.

I am surprised at some of the negative reviews posted here?! I guess some of these folks thought they were taking home "Hamlet" and got "Joy Ride" by mistake??? Sure there isn't much character development, sure you may have seen this premise before, and yes "Joy Ride" is a B-Movie.....and it's a great one! I don't know what more you could ask for with a movie like "Joy Ride", it gave me plenty of chills, and had me really rooting for the two brothers who get on the wrong side of a homicidal truck driver. "Joy Ride" may resemble "Duel", "Breakdown", "Highwaymen" or any one of a hundred thriller "road" movies, but the story is definately edge-of-your-seat fun, and worth adding to your collection if you are a horror fan. Within the first 10 minutes you get sucked into this thriller and it does not let go. Ted Levine is perfect as Rusty Nail (you forget how menacing he can be after watching him as Stottlemeyer on "Monk"), and if Levine's voice oozing through the cb radio doesn't give you goosebumps, you should really go have your blood pressure checked! "Joy Ride" is the perfect movie to watch late at night while you cower under the blankets.

Directed by John Dahl, previously best known for Red Rock West and The Last Seduction (the movie that launched Linda Fiorentino's career), the ironically titled Joy ride is very much a homage to the seventies Spielberg movie Duel but rather than being just a cheap rip-off Joy Ride is in fact a very entertaining, genuinely scary edge of the seat ride, which proves that you don't need a big budget to make great movies.

THE PLOT: The film's instantly likeable hero, Lewis, played by Paul Walker (The Fast and The Furious) a scholarship student at Berkeley, buys a battered 1971 car so he can pick up Venna (Leelee Sobieski), who he has a major crush for, from the University of Colorado and drive her to the East Coast for summer vacation. However, on the way he unexpectedly has to pick up his irresponsible older brother Fuller (the always excellent Steve Zahn) who's in a Salt Lake City jail on a drunk-and-disorderly charge. During the journey Fuller buys a cheap CB radio and involves Lewis in an unpleasant practical joke at the expense of a truck driver with the CB handle 'Rusty Nail' but they find themselves in fear for their lives when old Rusty turns out to be a psychopath who takes a violent dislike to them. From then on, they themselves become the objects of the unseen Rusty Nail's revenge. After several hair-raising encounters, they resolve not to tell Venna of their adventures when they pick her up at the clean, well-lit Colorado campus.

It would be easy to criticise Joy Ride (known as Road kill in the UK). Its premise is hardly original and its reliance on a CB radio as a plot device harks back to the seventies, rather than the present day when everybody (except in this movie) has a cell phone. However, Joy Ride is actually a stunning success due to its faultless direction, which creates Hitchcock like suspense and provides many heart stopping moments. The script is excellent too combining and balancing humour and horror in equal measures, often hinting at violence that is not actually seen and providing nervous moments of humour whilst avoiding corniness. As for the three leads they are perfectly cast with Paul Walker, minus the blonde beach boy locks he sported in The Fast and the Furious, making a good fist of the part of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks in love with the girl from the right side of the tracks played by the equally impressive Leelee Sobieski (Deep Impact). Steve Zahn (Out of Sight) as the misfit brother Fuller is also excellent and he steals many of the scenes with witty one-liners but ultimately this is a movie whose strength lies in the sum of all its parts. Cheaply made it shows that its not big budgets that make great movies its talent and imagination. Here's hoping there's a sequel! Four stars, well merited. ****

This is a brilliantly directed and scripted, 5-star thriller. The casting of the 3 leads - Steve Zahn, Paul Walker and Leelee Sobieski is perfect as they deliver wonderful performances and share great screen chemistry.

I can't remember the last time I had so much "fun" at the cinema. The suspense in "Joy Ride" is taut and heart-pounding while the laugh moments are also plentiful. The movie's about the danger that 2 brothers, Fuller (Zahn) and Lewis (Walker) get themselves into after their "seemingly" harmless prank on their car's CB radio goes horribly wrong when their "victim", a truck driver (who calls himself "Rusty Nail"), decides to get even with them. Watching this movie was great fun! Loud LAUGHS from the cinema audience during the funny scenes and SCREAMS from the female (mainly) audience during the "scary" moments testify to how effective the movie is. To me, one of the most hilarious scenes is the one where Fuller goes to the rescue of Venna (played by Sobieski) who is being harassed by a bunch of men in a motel bar.

The villain, "Rusty Nail" has the scariest voice! Listening to him talk on the CB radio ("Candy Cane... I'm looking for Candy Cane...") is enough to send a chill down your spine. You'll have to watch the movie to know whether he does show his face or not in the end.

This movie ends with a "delicious" twist.... to pave the way for a "Joy Ride 2", maybe?

I don't know if this type of movie is termed "black comedy" but trust me, the laughs and thrills are first-rate all the way. Just fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the Joy Ride!

John Dahl is a great director and I would prefer to see Hollywood take better notice of this guy. As far as Joy Ride goes - you get what you paid for - Comedy/Horror/Thriller with lots of suspense. This is not Dahl's best work but it fits that genre nicely in a "Scream" mixed with "Duel" sort of way. Actually the cinema print was different from the DVD because the bad guys face was not seen at all but they restored lots of that for the DVD (which has like a zillion alternative endings!)

This is pure pop-corn fodder but it is still good and the suspense is all there. If you are looking for cheesy horror/suspense films then you can not go too far wrong with Joy Ride. It is entertaining, but not exactly Oscar winning stuff as I am sure you are not expecting.

More John Dahl please. He is a good director.

Okay, let's face it. Now a days horror films just aren't scary anymore. They seem to be more comedic than anything. Well, this is a film that has all of the above.

Paul Walker plays Lewis Thomas, and Steve Zahn plays Fuller Thomas, his completely opposite brother. After bailing his brother out of jail, Lewis and Fuller take a road trip to Colorado to pick up their friend Venna Wilcox, played by Leelee Sobieski. However, on the way there, not too intelligent Fuller decides to have a little fun over the cb radio. They end up messing with the wrong guy, known only as rusty nail, and end up running for their lives. This film will deffinately have you at the edge of your seat wondering what move will be made next. This film may be very tense, but it is also very humorous. The cast of this film deliver an amazing performance that was better than I even expected.

The dvd has special features like a 29 minute alternate ending that I highly reccommend watching. You'll feel like you're sitting through a whole new movie all over again.

I was clutching onto my husband's arm for most of this edge-of-your-seat thriller about what happens when a little joke goes wrong.

This film deserved all of those great reviews! It was smart, original, funny, scary, creepy, thrilling, and about 100 more things!

Watch this at night... with someone to get scared with.

"Joy Ride" got many rave reviews when it was playing in theaters, and now I see why. The suspense is unrelenting. I liked the unusual villain, voiced by Ted Levine (unforgettable from Silence of the Lambs). It seemed like he had an almost supernatural hold on the trio of main characters, and his moves were certainly unpredictable. The cat-&-mouse game between the Nail's big rig and the brothers' vintage automobile reminded me of another similarly suspenseful movie called "Duel," the debut three decades ago from a director named Stephen Spielberg. That movie also featured an automobile driver being hunted by a never-seen truck driver. The DVD of "Joy Ride" has a bunch of interesting extra features. One of the alternate endings starts about half-way through the film and was about half an hour long! (And it unfolds in a very different way from the theatrical version.) And the feature that allows a side-by-side comparison of three different voices for the killer (incl. Eric Roberts) was fun.

The sub genre of teen horror is treated seriously in the superb, relentless, intense, and absorbing thriller "JOY RIDE". John Dahl ("Red Rock," "The Last Seduction") delivers a noirish and stylized tale about a college guy preparing to fly home for the summer when he has a chance to pick up a girl he has a crush on and drive her home. It's a no brainer. He sells his plane ticket, buys an old convertible and along the way bails out of jail and collects his older black-sheep brother. At a rural gas stop, they install a junker CB radio and tease a trucker in a girl's voice, telling him to meet at a motel at midnight. It's a cruel joke they get away with and soon forget as they race to where they hook-up with the girl. Paul Walker and Steve Zahn are terrific as the brothers and Leelee Sobieskei is a natural as the pretty, would be girlfriend. It should be no surprise that the trucker is not out of the picture, but now there's a real girl to menace in horrific payback. The direful voice of the trucker is malignantly rendered by Ted Levine (the killer-skinner in "Silence of the Lambs"). Extras include four alternate endings, voice auditions for the villain and a making of featurette.