Tags:
Film: Joy Ride II: Dead Ahead
Year: 2008
Director: Louis Morneau
Writer: James Robert Johnston and Bennett Yellin
Starring: Nicki Aycox, Nick Zano and Laura Jordan
Review:
This film begins with a trucker buying something at a store and getting back into his truck. A woman follows him and she turns out to be a truck-stop prostitute, she is played by Rebecca Davis. The man in the truck is Rusty Nails. He allows the woman to get in, but when she asks what sexual act he wants, he doesn’t answer. She tries to escape through the window, but before she can, he traps her by rolling it up. He then kills her by running her body into a truck beside him.
We then shift to a group of three. There are sisters played by Nicki Aycox and Laura Jordan. Aycox’s fiancé is in the car as well, he is played by Nick Zano. They are on their way to Las Vegas for a joint bachelor and bachelorette party. They are also driving in Jordan’s old beat-up car.
They stop to get gas and meet an emo punk guy. It turns out to be Jordan’s boyfriend, who is played by Kyle Schmid. She met him on Myspace. Aycox is not happy about it, but she will try to give him a chance.
Schmid convinces Zano that they should take a side road so they can get to Las Vegas quicker. They do take it, but the car breaks down. They resort to walking and end up at a house in the middle of nowhere. There is no one home and Schmid breaks a window to get in. Zano breaks the door down when he thinks there is something happening to Schmid, but it turns out he is just messing around. The phones do not work and it looks like no one has been there for sometime.
They end up finding a nice old car in the garage and decide to take it. Aycox leaves her number so they can pay the owner for the window, the door and for taking the car. It also states that they will bring the car back. They hit the road again.
It turns out that the car belonged to Rusty Nails. He hits the road again, looking for the group.
The next morning, the group goes to a truck stop diner. They are almost hit by a semi and Jordan flips it off. She also throws her coffee at it. They go inside and Schmid begins to run his mouth about truckers. It turns out that his father was one and doesn’t have much respect for them. Zano goes to the bathroom.
While they are waiting for him to return, their food begins to come out. Aycox is worried about Zano when she gets a phone call. It turns out that it is Rusty Nails. He reveals that he has been watching them and has taken Zano. He says that they have to do what he says if they want to see him alive again. The first thing he wants is the finger that Jordan flipped him off with.
They get an idea to try to trick him by removing a finger from a corpse in the local morgue. He forces Aycox to strip at the drop-off point, but it turns out that the person she is stripping in front of is another trucker and Zano is not in this truck. When everyone gets back in their car, they find Zano’s severed finger in the glove-box. They know he isn’t playing.
Will Aycox get to see Zano alive again? Will they be able to survive the sick, sadistic game that Rusty Nails is playing? Schmid ends up being captured too and is forced to play a deadly game of craps, will he survive? Will Rusty Nails get away with it again?
I have to say that this one has a different storyline than the first and I did like that. I thought the first one was great and the idea of Rusty Nails can be terrifying. I like that he has multiple reasons for coming after them and he is a maniacal genius in the things he does to mess with them. He uses a lot of different things, including other truckers and knowing things about them that force them to do scarier things in his game. I think Schmid was pretty good in the character he played as well as Zano and Jordan. That is about where it ends though.
My biggest problem with this film is that it had big shoes to fill in the original. I don’t think the story is as good as it was in the first. I also think that this one is as well-written as well as the original. The acting in the first was better across the board. Aycox is the star and I wasn’t a huge fan. I think she is pretty in a different kind of way, but I just don’t think she was all that believable. Rusty Nails is not voiced by the same actor, but the voice is quite close. This film seems to have a lower budget and it feels like it like does. It just had the feel of a sub-par horror film and that is what the final product is.
I would only recommend watching this film if you are into low budget horror films. If you are coming into this one expecting something to follow-up the first one, you are going to be disappointed. The story has a good concept, but it is not as well written. The acting is okay. The death scenes are pretty good and somewhat creative. This film takes Rusty Nails from being a trucker who has been embarrassed and looking for revenge, to a psycho who is still out for revenge for something else. I would say avoid this one unless you want to watch a cheesy, low-budget horror film. I would warn you to not come in expecting a lot though or I fear you’ll be quite disappointed.
My Rating: 4 out of 10