Review of Joy Ride (1958) by Randy P — 08 Mar 2016

Joy Ride is directed by John Dahl, written by well known director J.J. Abrams, and Clay Tarver. It stars Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, Leelee Sobieski, and Ted Levine in a horror thriller film about 2 brothers messing around with the radio, and when Rusty Nail was on the radio, they decided to prank him, and when they get their laugh, Rusty Nail goes after them for being embarrassed in a car chase.

I was excited to go back to watching this film as J.J. Abrams was one of the main reasons why I wanted to watch it again, even if he's not the director for this film. So with Joy Ride, it's a great film that is interesting to see small films that J.

J. Abrams was involved with before he got well known. Paul Walker is good as the main lead, and Steve Zahn is pretty funny in it, but is not just the comic relief in it. Ted Levine is very scary good in it, gives off a very chilling voice that's honestly different from what I usually hear from horror films, and his character is a great villain that makes sense why he's doing that.

The score by Marco Beltrami is effective for the film, and it has a lot of suspense to the point of making me worried for the characters. The problems I have with the film, is that the plot is not original, in fact, it reminds me a lot of Steven Spielberg's Duel which J.

J. Abrams was influenced by, and Leelee Sobieski is just all right in it, nothing really special for her performance. In the end, Joy Ride is smarter than your average B movie and had a lot of great things in it to make it stand out on its own.