Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Riding The Bullet


Sometimes movies adapted from the writings of Stephen King are classics. You think of Carrie, The Shining, IT, The Stand, Pet Semetary and Misery. You forget about every adaptation that has failed. I haven't read Stephen King's version of Riding The Bullet, so all of this may indeed be his fault. But his lack of control on the film adaptations of his work, is "Let them do what they want" attitude can backfire horribly and I can't believe he'd write something so horribly paced. Then again, King is the brains behind Maximum Overdrive.


Riding The Bullet is nothing but a flood of delusions and false scares which soon grow tiresome. After the 30th vision by the main character, you aren't scared anymore, you aren't trying to figure out what is truth and what is in the main characters mind, you simply don't care.


Like most ideas from the mind of Stephen King, the premise is interesting. Like half of his ideas, its poorly executed. A hitchhiker on a deserted road late at night hitches rides with the dead. Seems interesting, but the dead are cartoonish, as well as the whole movie. It appears that they didn't know if they wanted to make a scary movie, or a cartoonish B movie. Riding The Bullet tries to dance the line but fails miserably. This movie would've been served well if half of it had been left on the cutting room floor.

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