Riding the Bullet | | Cast : | Jonathan Jackson, David Arquette, Barbara Hershey | | Director : | Mick Garris | | Studio : | Lions Gate Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | October 15, 2004 | | DVD Released Date : | April 19, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | Wasted Chance: Like the Hero Himself, 'Riding the Bullet' Does Not Know What It Wants to Do | Content
 | Stephen King's flair for good storytelling is absolutely missing in 'Riding the Bullet' directed by Mick Garris, who fared far better in TV's 'Shining' or 'Stand.' King's original novella has potential for sure, which includes serious matters, life and death. And King must have known the topic first-hand, for the story was written after he suffered a serious injury after a traffic accident.
But Mick Garris takes things too literarily in this film. The premises are intriguing. The time is during the years of Vietnam War. The place, Maine (you can hear the name of Castlerock). One college student, obsessed with the idea of throwing his life away, realizes something important while hitchiking to his hometown, where his mother fell suddenly ill. This is a fine idea for making a road movie, and hitchiking on the two-lane road could be pretty scary.
The college student Alan Parker is played by Jonathan Jackson, who, leaving his kind-hearted friend Jessica (Erika Christensen) at college, encounters several strange drivers on the road (including one old driver played by Chiff Robertson). The most unnerving one turns out creepy guy George Staub (David Aqquette), who offers Allan a ride at night, and seems to know many things about Alan's life in the past, including the death of his father. But why?
This story could be a vintage urban legend-like weird tale, but Mick Garris fails to make good use of it, by showing things without any visual imagination. Think of this; if some 'inner self' talks to Alan, another image of Alan (played by Jackson himself) appears right next or behind him, and starts to talk to him. If Alan sees 'visions' perhaps because of hullcination or smoking weed, Alan exactly sees, say, his mother croaking like a bird. Or in another place Alan even sees a bird, picking the dead meat of some animal, and it really talks to him. They are not scary; they are downright embarrassing.
The film has good supports -- Barbara Hershey as Alan's mother, plus Matt Frewer and Nicky Katt. None of them, however, show what they can really do, for the film is too intent on showing the visions of Alan, or his gloomy outlook on life. In fact, Alan is kind of a student who draws a picture of a naked model with the Grim Reaper behind her, and does not notice the presence of Erika Christensen while she is always looking at him. Why should we care about this guy in the first place?
The film is not scary -- that's is not a problem -- but also, the film is awfully self-indlugent and doesn't know what it wants to do, like the protagonist it shows. Horror? Not exactly. Nostalgic drama, like 'Stand By Me'? Far from it. This is after all just another wasted opportunity for making a decent film out of Stephen King. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 01, 2005 | | Summary | Hitch-hikers meet the strangest drivers. | Content
| Alan (Jonathan Jackson) is a young college student. He is an artist. The only problem is he was visited by the death reaper. When he has a naked lady model before him in art class, he draws the grim reaper behind her. That night while he is in the bathtub, he is visited by the reaper again and it drives him to pick up the razor and slit his wrist, but a surprise party of friends invade his privacy and save his life.
He survuved, but his life is still in the macabre. He has a twin conscience that speaks to him. He has flashbacks of his childhood and visions of himself of what could happen to him.
Alan receives a call that his mom (Barbara Hershey) has had a stroke. So he decides to hitch-hike to Lewiston. Every driver he comes across is a strange occurence and he must risk his life and being alone on a lonely road in the woods at night is dangerous too.
This is truly a Stephen King nightmare.
Best Line: "...seems like the longer you live, the more God wants to kick you in the ass". |
| Rating | | | Date | July 23, 2005 | | Summary | undeserved bad-wrap... | Content
| If there is any dissapointment I feel with this adaptation, it is that other King fans aren't rellishing in it.
I wont go over the plot, but beware- spoilers herin...
What a wonderfully fresh approach to a King adaptation. Many of his short story translations haven't been all that successful; some were okay, (Sometimes They come back), some were terrible (Children of the Corn- eugh!), but this, Mick Garris's latest, refuses to take only the face value of the story, which is what most filmmakers and especially hollywood horror-meisters, do... (Just think of Dreamcatcher, that film was wrongly-conceived from the start; it needed to be way more camp and funny, I mean, it took itself way too seriouslly... It was an alien invasion launched out of someones sphincter!).
This film however, explores the interior of the main protagoist and really- explores King's literature. Garris also carefully constructs the story; introducing the theme of the artist, and even more importantly, an artist in the time of Vietnam. His work is heavy with death imagery and indeed, he lives in scary times, yet Alan is put down by his art teacher who insists that he draw beauty from his surroundings, not juvenille scares.
So it is established firmly that Alan, the main character- has an overley morose, yet creative mind. He is also emotionally unstable (his contemplation of suicide)- due probably to lasting effects of his fathers death. And he is scarred. As one character points out, many children of suicide victims are more likley to commit suicide themselves- its almost as though his fathers death has numbed him to the concept of morality and how fragile it is ... Garris carefully justifies all that will follow, creating, as King himself does- plausible and fully fleshed characters.
So what ensues is cleaverly, a double edged sword. Fueled by the stroke of his mother, we as an audience watch either a wonderfully camp Halloween ghost story, or very clever psychological drama. At no point, when you really think about it- is there any concrete evidence of the supernatural. All weird occurences are undermined by a 'leap in and outside the head'- scare, if that makes any sense...
Also, in the same vein, many of his horror fantasises are fleshed out horror cliche's of the time; as though Alan's breaking mind is influenced heavily by the pop culture images surrounding him (reinforced by much of the 60's popular music)- for example, the Crow; someone with Alan's interests would surley have read Poe... Or George Staub himslef, who appears to be a zombie, is a definite horror extra straight from the 60's screen, George himself cajoos Alan with the taunt 'They're coming to get you Barbara...' which is a direct quote from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. And again, the death of Staub is a funny and clever recreation of the over the top horror cinema of the time- with even seperating reality even furthur by establishing the flashback inside a theatre, inside a movie, with bold, 60's titles, Hammer-like music and an EC-ish severed head proclaiming urban legends!
Man, great stuff for film buffs.
And even if its not a psychological thriller; its a cool, fun, spooky road movie, with unexpected heart and quite a touching and melancholy ending.
Garris has made an intelligent movie, its funny and heart-felt. Its a surreal adventure to be sure, but at no point does it lead you to think otherwise, you know what your in for from the first five minutes (featuring the Grim Reaper smoking a joint with Alan).
Well done to Garris, who has done it again. I can't wait for 'Desperation'. Look quickly for cameo's, Garris plays a doctor, his wife Cynthia plays a nurse and one of the old guys in the pickup truck is a singer from that era.
Have fun and if you didn't like it too much first time round, try it again.
Drive Safe... mwa-mwa-mwa
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| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | There was a time... | Content
| ...I assosiated Stephen King with fear and horror. Not anymore, and a lot of those countless b-movies made "in his name" (and by the man himself!) he has got to take a share of the blame for. I mean; Not one classic horror-movie is the result of any of his work. "The Shining" without discussion was Stanley Kubricks', and was and is a masterpiece because he made an entirely different version vaguely based on the book. Not that Stephen King is anything but a great author, but "his" movies over the years have become extremely disturbing, including the many he has contributed on. He does not impress me at all anymore. And a movie signed Stephen King is never a real horror movie, they look cheap -and let's face it; mostly are!
It's like these movies are horror-movies for children. And I'm serious about that. When I was twelve "IT" was one of the scariest movies I'd ever seen. Of course I realize this can have something to do with progress in the tv-business, as in that times have changed -and so has the audience. But "Riding The Bullet" is just another sad, sad proof of that... hm, what's the proper description here? Well, it's just sad. It might scare you if you're young at age, and bad actors dressed up as "Death" is something that would freak you out. The effects are tv-moviesh (you get my point), and all in all; A typicall Stephen King-horror-turkey-production. To use covering words.
Is it at least entertainig?
No, about five minutes into the movie I just knew that this would be bad. The acting, the unsympathetic characters (usually they're not the problem for me, but...), and it's not even a bit original. Whatever you do don't buy it, I did -and money's been wasted.
A shame.
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| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | King coming to grips with his own mortality. | Content
| _This film is based on perhaps the most autobiographical of King's stories. That is why you have the motif of car accidents and hit-and-runs repeated over and over here. King was trying to come to grips with the aftermath of his own near-fatal accident when he was struck and nearly killed while walking alone on a rural road one night. That is a big reason why the artist who is the film's protagonist is able to converse with his own double (doppelganger)- this is King conversing with himself and trying to expel the demon of his own fear of death. That is what is so significant about him claiming that he has no fear of death- and his double mocking him as the "Prince of Darkness." You see, King finally met Death, and he wasn't at all sure that he could continue to treat the subject so cavalierly in his writing in the future.
_In the end though King, the writer, wins through. By bringing in the Staub character as the 1950's style greaser messenger of death (driving what looks like "Christine") he is staying connected with his past writing. By connecting this with reflections on his own mortality- and his mother's- he is immunizing himself psychologically against the reality of death. Or at least he is trying to get to the point that he can work with the theme again. What you end up with is an exploration of the subject of near-death that I found quite satisfying.
_Come to think of it, the idea of the haunted roller coaster being a metaphor for life was especially appropriate. You either ride it (consciously contemplate or tempt death) or you run from it (refuse to come to grips with it), but in the end the result is the same- you die.
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