Joyride & Joyride 2: Dead Ahead

Every year for Christmas my mom and I exchange random DVDs with each other. It is just a random gifting tradition we do in hopes of landing each other a good film from the $5 DVD bin. My mom has been on a pretty good streak for awhile and past hits she gifted me I never saw before that were a hit for me include Sour Grapes, Alpha Dog, Blues Brothers and Rat Race. Today I am covering last year’s Christmas DVD, which is a pair of scare/thriller films that were part of a two-in-one pack with 2001’s Joy Ride (trailer) and its 2008 sequel, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (trailer).

The original Joy Ride stars Paul Walker in the lead who is fresh off his Fast and the Furious fame earlier in 2001. Walker stars as Lewis, who is on a road trip to pick up his longtime crush Venna (Leelee Sobieski). Along the way when checking in at home with the family, he discovers his brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) needs to get bailed out of jail so it becomes a three person road trip. Along the way they pick up a CB radio and start pranking truckers on it. One of their pranks with a trucker who only goes by ‘Rusty Nail’ (voiced by Ted Levine) goes all kinds of bad when it turns out that good ‘ol Rusty is a psychotic killer.

The film proceeds to be a gigantic cat and mouse chase with lots of thrilling moments and gotcha-scares that reeled me in all the way. The only questionable moments I had in the film was that there is no way that big rigs can accelerate as fast as they do here, but I rolled with it for the sake of the film. Additionally, the few glimpses we got of Rusty throughout the film made it hard to believe he was as mobile and crafty as the film made him out to be, but at that point I was so immersed into the crazy stunts and story that it did not bother me that much, especially in the final act that had an intense showdown with everyone involved and a gratifying payoff to a great overall flow of consistently bigger and better stunts, chases and thrills.

Joy Ride hit in 2001, which was probably one of the last years you could do a slasher/scare flick by avoiding one hiccup that most films in that genre struggle with today and that is how do you address the victims-to-be immediately busting out their cell phones and calling for help? In Joy Ride 2 they address this by Rusty (now played by Mark Gibbon) phoning the victims and telling them to immediately dispose of and crush their phones. How did Rusty get their number? Well, the victims felt bad when their car broke down and they happened to stumble upon Rusty’s home and broke into his place and ‘borrowed’ his car to get to safety.

The victims in the direct-to-video sequel are not as sympathetic as the first and it did not make me want to root for them. Bobby is suppose to be the stand-up guy here, but he is played by Nick Zano who also happens to play Steel, aka the biggest dolt in Legends of Tomorrow and knowing how much I detest him in that made it hard to root for him here. Nik (Kyle Schmid) is intentionally played up to be a slimeball that I found myself rooting for him to be the first to go, and I will give props to the filmmakers for having a very sleazy character get his fitting way to ride off into the sunset.

Joy Ride 2 tried to get a little more creative with its thrills and moments of despair. There are still a couple standard chase scenes, but there are also scenes that straight-up flop such as Rusty getting Nik to dress up in drag in order to score him some crank, and Rusty goofing on Melissa (Nicki Aycox) to get her to striptease. The only scene that really popped out for me was when Rusty gets Bobby and Nik to play his special version of craps that you just have to see to believe. I tried to hunt down a clip to link, but alas YouTube has failed me! That scene combined with the final showdown with Rusty results for a mildly satisfying final act, but nowhere near the same level as the first Joy Ride.

Joy Ride 2 only has two quick extras for 20 minutes which mostly feature basic cast and crew interviews setting up the film with a few interesting anecdotes on filming in the desert in Canada and its makeup work. The original Joy Ride however is packed with extras. The standout extra is four different alternate endings. All four have director’s commentary which I found helpful on why the filmmakers say they did not work. One of the endings is nearly a half hour long and features the always awesome, Walter Goggins and has a whole different take on how the final act went down. The other three have alternate branching paths and I found all four really fascinating on how they played out and why they did not make the cut. Joy Ride also has three commentaries, one with director John Dahl, the second with actors Zahn and Sobieski and the third with writers JJ Abrams and Clay Tarver which was the commentary I decided to check out. The duo have a good flow of nonstop banter with little to no lulls and tons of facts and insight about the cast and behind-the-scenes on the film. A couple highlights was how they renovated an abandoned truck stop for just one scene for the film and how they had to shoot the big cornfield chase on two occasions in separate cornfields and they dissected all the little differences to point out how they pulled it off.

I will give my mom another thumbs up for her annual Christmas DVD for me. If you made it this far it is obvious I am much higher on the first Joy Ride compared to its sequel. The sequel still has a few moments that saved it into being passable, but if you were to only watch one, then definitely check out the first. Upon doing my research for this entry, I see there is a third Joy Ride film that hit straight-to-video in 2014, subtitled Roadkill, so it looks like I will have to track that down and complete the trilogy!

June 2018 Update - Earlier this month I rented Joy Ride 3: Roadkill from Netflix DVD. Since watching it via rental means Roadkill is not a true backlog video in my library that means it does not meet the criteria for its own separate blog. However, I feel justified in making a little addendum here for some quick thoughts. Roadkill is a huge step up from Dead Ahead. The voice for Rusty Nail is back (although his on screen persona is portrayed by a more leaner and meaner actor) and he has a far better opening slasher scene against two sleazy drifters who I was rooting to get their just deserts.

The primary protagonists are a young upstart racing steam en route to their next race when they make the mistake of intentionally cutting ‘ol Rusty off and that is impetus enough for Rusty to pick ‘em off one-by-one in far more entertainingly campy ways than before. The explanation to get rid of cell phones for help had me rolling over, and there are some awesome inept cops and the mandatory creepy waitress to round off a stellar supporting cast. Naturally, Roadkill climaxes in a duel in a junkyard that played out far better than I anticipated. If you are looking for a way to mix it up for your next slasher film marathon then Joy Ride 3: Roadkill would be a great way to close off the night by watching the entire Joy Ride trilogy.


Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
The War
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past