Hello and welcome back for yet another year of Halloween celebrations as we do the Blogathon that is The Countdown to Halloween and to start off this month of fun I thought I would watch a movie called Joyride which is what this celebration is going to be like a joyride. Cue the Roxette music, oh just look it up if you don't know ya piker! Joyride (2001) is directed by John Dahl who also directed Rounders and The Last Seduction. Starring here is Paul Walker, who you may have seen in any one of the many Fast and the Furious movies and Steve Zahn (Dallas Buyers Club and You've Got Mail) as brothers Lewis and Tucker. Lewis buys a car and takes a long road trip to get Tucker after he is released from prison. Along for the ride literally is Leelee Sobieski from 2006’s The Wicker Man and The Glass House as Venna, Lewis's sometimes girlfriend.
Soon after Lewis picks Tucker up from prison, Lewis decides he wants to play a prank using the CB radio that is in the car that Lewis recently purchased. The two brothers fake having a conversation on the CB after Tucker convinces Lewis to pretend to be a woman nicknamed Candy Cane. Then they play a prank on another trucker, that trucker is nicknamed Rusty Nail, or I should say has the handle Rusty Nail and he believes that Lewis is a woman. After several conversations on the CB, Lewis convinces Rusty Nail to meet him at a motel. The prank being that when Rusty Nail shows up at the hotel he will go to a room where a man that Tucker had nearly gotten into a fight with earlier is actually staying. But when Rusty Nail shows up that's when all the fun really begins.
Was Paul Walker only in movies where he was driving a car because I really have a hard time thinking of any movies where he's not. Oh, before I forget, Rusty Nail is played by Ted Levine (or is at least voiced by Ted Levine because somebody else is actually playing him in physical form) who you may know better as Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs. You know the “put the lotion in the basket” guy. Joyride starts off as a real slow burn and then gets kind of cringe and then it's pretty balls to the wall and then it kind of peters out. It's more of a thriller than it is a horror film but still gets the job done. For the most part if you've ever seen the movie Duel with Dennis Weaver that Steven Spielberg directed then you've pretty much seen this movie, but it was still good enough to eke out 3 1/2 bottles of pink champagne out of five in my book.
