Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 1, 2001, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Joy Ride passes one of the tests of a good thriller, which is that when the characters approach a closed room or mysterious package or, in this case, a car trunk within which a surprise is waiting, it’s not easy to predict what the surprise will be. In this case, college student Lewis (Paul Walker), his ne’er-do-well brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) and Venna (Leelee Sobieski), a girl Lewis is sweet on, have been directed by a psychopath who’s been stalking them to pull over and open the trunk of their vehicle. What’s inside won’t be revealed here, but it’s a nice twist that’s both logical and provides a quiet little chill.
Both of those qualities inform the whole of Joy Ride, which doesn’t quite measure up to such seminal desert-pursuit films as Duel, The Hitcher and Breakdown, but is certainly superior to the recent youth-horror likes of, say, Jeepers Creepers. Like that film, Joy Ride follows a pair of siblings relentlessly hunted by a villain in a truck; here, Lewis brings the fresh-out-of-jail Fuller along for a cross-country drive home, during which he also plans to pick up Venna, an old pal who just happens to have broken up with her boyfriend. The relationships between the three are well-drawn by writers Clay Tarver and J.J. Abrams (also a producer), with a minimum of the annoying expository dialogue that passes for character-building these days. Walker and Sobieski complement this with appealing performances, while the role of Fuller allows Zahn to add an intriguing edge to his patented smart-aleck persona.
It’s Fuller who, during their drive, encourages Lewis to pose as a woman on their CB and set up an assignation with a trucker who goes by the handle Rusty Nail. Unfortunately, Mr. Nail doesn’t take kindly to being made the fool, and begins a reign of terror against the brothers, armed with a huge 18-wheeler and an almost supernatural ability to find them. Existing almost entirely as a voice on the CB (the uncredited but unmistakable tones of Silence of the Lambs’ Ted Levine), Rusty Nail is a truly effective villain for being unseen. Returning to the Southwestern territory that served him so well in Red Rock West, director John Dahl makes the landscape a threatening character as well, one in which the brothers, and later Venna, discover there’s nowhere to hide.
Joy Ride is the kind of efficient, A-class B-movie the studios rarely make these days (at least, not well), telling a simple story with directness and flair and populating it with characters whose behavior is reasonable and plausible. Most importantly, they’re worth watching and paying attention to even when they’re not being terrorized, and that doesn’t happen in many teen chillers. There is some humor (mostly of the nasty kind), but it exists only as an occasional tension-breaker in a film that is otherwise played straight. And while its basic trajectory is familiar (and the ending rather abrupt), Joy Ride scatters sneaky, startling and unexpected moments throughout, raising tension and chills even from something like the (I won’t tell) in the trunk.
