Riding the Bullet is set during 1969 & starts as college art student Jessica Hadley (Erika Christensen) tells her fellow art student boyfriend Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) that she is splitting up with him, it's his birthday as well. That night Jessica reveals that it was just a ploy to set-up a surprise party but Alan gets some bad news as he learns that his mother Jean (Barbara Hershey) has had a stroke & is in hospital, Alan decides to hike all the way to Lewiston & be with his sick mother. Alan manages to get several rides as he gets closer to Lewiston but finally ends up in the red Plymouth Fury of George Staub (David Arquette) whom Alan becomes to believe is dead, George offers him a deal in which he has to make a choice whether his mother or himself dies that very night...
This American, German & Canadian co-production was written, co-produced & directed by Mick Garris & was based on the internet publish story Riding the Bullet by Stephen King, any horror film fan worth anything will know that generally speaking Stephen King books don't make particularly good films although it seems his name sells so I guess people will continue to make make crappy films based on his usually great work. I have not read Riding the Bullet nor had I even heard of it before seeing this adaptation so I cannot compare the two but I get the impression that the novel might have worked better. I am not really sure what Riding the Bullet is meant to be, is it a horror? Is it a drama? Is it a sentimental coming of age story? Is it just an oddball curiosity with no real deep meaning or ambition? Riding the Bullet is certainly a hard film to categorise & I am not quite sure who it is meant to appeal to, surely it's too tame & sedate for the horror crowd yet a little too out there & extreme for the low key melodrama fans. The script seems to handing out mixed messages all over the place, it never has central focus & the constant flashbacks, dreams, & fantasies that go through Alan's mind become annoying & are only there to add a bit of gore & a bit of dark humour. At 100 minutes long Riding the Bullet is watchable & if you can get into the sloppy narrative & like the character's then you may enjoy it, I didn't think it was terrible as it had a few moments here & there but overall the film feels shallow, unfocused & almost unfinished. A strange sort of road trip, dark comedy horror thriller that I didn't hate but didn't love either.
Mick Garris seems to have a thing about Stephen King adaptations having worked on as either writer or director on the likes of Sleepwalkers (1992) & Quicksilver Highway (1997) as well as the television series The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), Desperation (2006) & the recent Bag of Bones (2011). Riding the Bullet has a few gory moments, a Dog killing a cute Rabbit, a Crow eating some roadkill & then being pulped by an ambulance, a talking severed head, a ripped-off hand & a bit of blood splatter but nothing that scary or extreme. This is well made for what it is but the soap opera happy ending sentiment didn't do anything for me & left me feeling rather cold. There's an obvious nod to King's killer car novel Christine as the red Plymouth Fury turns up as the preferred car choice of the dead.
With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 this has good production values & looks the part, the special effects are pretty good too. Filmed in Canada. The acting is alright, the actor's bring a certain warmth & likability to the character's & that's the main reason I stuck with it.
Riding the Bullet isn't typical Stephen King material, those used to top notch horror will be disappointed here & while I didn't hate Riding the Bullet I can't think of much to recommend it other than it's unusual & is watchable. Not awful but not particularly good either a film like this comes down to personal taste really.
This American, German & Canadian co-production was written, co-produced & directed by Mick Garris & was based on the internet publish story Riding the Bullet by Stephen King, any horror film fan worth anything will know that generally speaking Stephen King books don't make particularly good films although it seems his name sells so I guess people will continue to make make crappy films based on his usually great work. I have not read Riding the Bullet nor had I even heard of it before seeing this adaptation so I cannot compare the two but I get the impression that the novel might have worked better. I am not really sure what Riding the Bullet is meant to be, is it a horror? Is it a drama? Is it a sentimental coming of age story? Is it just an oddball curiosity with no real deep meaning or ambition? Riding the Bullet is certainly a hard film to categorise & I am not quite sure who it is meant to appeal to, surely it's too tame & sedate for the horror crowd yet a little too out there & extreme for the low key melodrama fans. The script seems to handing out mixed messages all over the place, it never has central focus & the constant flashbacks, dreams, & fantasies that go through Alan's mind become annoying & are only there to add a bit of gore & a bit of dark humour. At 100 minutes long Riding the Bullet is watchable & if you can get into the sloppy narrative & like the character's then you may enjoy it, I didn't think it was terrible as it had a few moments here & there but overall the film feels shallow, unfocused & almost unfinished. A strange sort of road trip, dark comedy horror thriller that I didn't hate but didn't love either.
Mick Garris seems to have a thing about Stephen King adaptations having worked on as either writer or director on the likes of Sleepwalkers (1992) & Quicksilver Highway (1997) as well as the television series The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), Desperation (2006) & the recent Bag of Bones (2011). Riding the Bullet has a few gory moments, a Dog killing a cute Rabbit, a Crow eating some roadkill & then being pulped by an ambulance, a talking severed head, a ripped-off hand & a bit of blood splatter but nothing that scary or extreme. This is well made for what it is but the soap opera happy ending sentiment didn't do anything for me & left me feeling rather cold. There's an obvious nod to King's killer car novel Christine as the red Plymouth Fury turns up as the preferred car choice of the dead.
With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 this has good production values & looks the part, the special effects are pretty good too. Filmed in Canada. The acting is alright, the actor's bring a certain warmth & likability to the character's & that's the main reason I stuck with it.
Riding the Bullet isn't typical Stephen King material, those used to top notch horror will be disappointed here & while I didn't hate Riding the Bullet I can't think of much to recommend it other than it's unusual & is watchable. Not awful but not particularly good either a film like this comes down to personal taste really.