The 3rd movie I decided to watch this week was the straight to dvd sequel Joy Ride, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead. This was the first time I saw this movie and I was a little suspect after seeing the straight to dvd sequel of Cabin Fever and if you saw my blog on that one then you know how much I enjoyed it (obvious attempt at sarcasm). haha. Gotta be honest this wasn't that bad but its wasn't good at all. Below is my detailed review.
Ok so as sad as it may be there again is really no point in even discussing the actors and actresses in this film because it wasn't worth discussing. Sorry but that's the truth. There wasn't one memorable acting performance in this film not that I was really looking for one but there just wasn't anything worth discussing. I guess the only thing I can say is that the voice of Rusty Nail was not the original Rusty Nail who in turn was Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs and this new version of Rusty Nail was not half as good, not even a quarter.
Now I didn't expect them to get the original Rusty Nail for this straight to DVD movie but they really should have thought about that before they even decided to go fourth with this movie at all. His character and the "voice" of his character alone is such major role in these films my thinking is they shouldn't have tried to low budget it and go with someone else when that part of a particular role was so important to the story and essence of the film. It just wasn't the same at all and on top of that the story was pretty weak as well.
The original movie was exceptional. Not just because of the voice of Rusty Nail and not because of the cast (Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, etc.) but because it was extremely well written and the story was truly terrifying and scary. It was one of those type of movies like Breakdown and Vacancy where in my mind this could really happen and if so it would be down right horrifying. This second film, the sequel, started out ok but quickly got bad and the acting was terrible and it just steamrolled downhill from there.
The actor who played Nik was absolutely awful and so unconvincing in both his tough guy rocker persona and his weak crying fake tattoo guy persona. Just overall he was terrible and since he was such an integral part of the film it made it extremely difficult to watch. The best actor of the bunch was Bobby, the handsome boyfriend of notably the main character in the film, Melissa. Bobby was limited on his screen time due to the fact that he was the first one kidnapped and its a shame because he would have had the most promise of anything that resembled a decent acting performance but it just wasn't meant to be. Instead we only got glimpse's of him throughout until the end of the film.
With most horror flicks there is a decent amount of blood and gore and this was no different. I believe that they tried to compensate in this category for a bad storyline so they did have some scenes that were decent in that category but as usual with most horror films they were quite unrealistic. I mean I can believe a finger can get cut off with a pipe cutter and a girls head can be chopped off when hanging out of a big rid and running into another one but the jaw scene with the owner of the bar/diner was a little unrealistic. I mean one swoop of a big metal string type object and were supposed to believe it cut the guys bottom half of his face off? I'm not thinking so. I also don't think one man, unless his name is Michael Myers has the power to put a rod iron piece of metal through someone's skull with just one fluid motion, sorry not buying it. I applaud the effort to attempt to add in some good blood and gore but at some point it needs to be a little realistic, right?
Overall this film had very few moments that were decent and none that were really good. When you have a movie that is longer than 90 minutes and there aren't really any good parts or sequences that is a problem. I wanted to like this film, I wanted to get into it more but I just couldn't and I tried. The constant stereotypes that are typical in most movies were in full effect but one thing that was difficult and could have been a big deterrent for me was that the "good" guys in this film weren't really characters you root for you overcome, they were stale and boring and maybe that is why it was boring for me. I had no interested in whether or not they made it out alive or not. Sorry but I have to give this one a D!
nyc.......... and thrilling
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