Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) is not a particularly optimistic boy. And one can easily understand this: beginning with the fact that, at a young age, he lost his father in an automobile accident (or so he was told by Jean, his mother).
Left "alone against the World" along with his still-young mother (Barbara Hersey), Parker moves -for study reasons- away from the domestic bedside to attend a Maine high school.
On Hallowen's Eve 1969, a new nightmare begins for Alan: punctuated by the succinct words of his girlfriend, who intends to leave him for a while.
Disheartened and more disheartened by the fact that October 30 is also his 21st birthday Parker begins to hallucinate and witnesses a creepy black-clad figure urging him to slit his wrists.
Act averted by the sudden appearance in the apartment of his girlfriend and schoolmates: they have not forgotten the birthday at all, and-let alone-the girl intends to abandon him.
After receiving a ticket, from the same, to a John Lennon concert Alan decides to leave, on the same evening, together with two friends... But a sudden phone call throws off his plans: his neighbor warns him that his mother has had a stroke and is hospitalized; now under control, she urges Alan to show up on the weekend at the nursing home.
But Alan, increasingly melancholy, certainly cannot go to a concert, knowing that his mother is in that condition--nor does he intend to leave on the weekend.
So he opts to leave -on foot- immediately, road hitchhiking....
The "initiatory" journey, as night approaches, is the cause of flash-backs (in which the Bullet appears again and again: "the roller coaster" of amusement parks) and sudden glimpses of a possible nefarious future.
Alan will meet several people who offer him a ride, only to learn to his horror (and shortly thereafter) that they have died in traffic accidents.
The long night journey, through roads that seem never to have been traveled by human beings, is interspersed with unpleasant encounters: two characters in a pickup truck will prove particularly dangerous...
But that is nothing: until a shady figure appears in his path, a certain George Staub (David Arquette) who turns out to be an emissary of the Afterlife and who proposes, to the terrified Alan, an insoluble question: his life in exchange for Jean's.
Based on the e-book of the same name by Stephen King (later to come into print, in Italy, by Sperling & Kupfer), the film deals in a metaphorical sense with the initiatory journey of a teenager, confronted with the choices and destinies of everyday life: in which the sense of survival predominates over the concept of "morality." And it is this aspect-the banal and predictable underlying morality-that completely undermines the film's success.
Despite good performances-by Jonathan Jackson, David Arquette, Barbara Hersey (previously seen in 11:14 a.m. Fatal Destiny)-and excellent direction by Mick Garris, overall the film appears too one-sided and often predictable.
Too bad, because the idea was quite interesting (as successful appears to be proposing-au contraire-the concept of the "ghost hitchhiker")...
There is also room for an Urban Legend: when one of the protagonists (from the World of the Dead) tells the story of the cheap Cadillac; sold by the owner because, following the sudden death of his wife (with corpse left inside the car for three weeks) it is impregnated with foul-smelling aphoras.
The screenplay is the work of a very important figure in horror cinema: in fact, Mick Garris (who is also the director) is a trusted collaborator of King, to whom the Maine writer has repeatedly had his novels transposed onto film: famous-for example-the (television) remake of The Shining, which, for the writer, Kubrick had distorted with the film of the same name...
But Garris is, above all, the creator of the series that is shaping up to be "pivotal" and that is racking up expectations from various fans: Masters of Horror. After a series of meetings (and dinners) with the most important directors of Horror cinema, the project of the series born ... by sheer coincidence, was configured.
Also in the cast (in the brief role of nurse Annie Wilkes) is Cynthia Garris: probably a close relative of the director.
It should also be noted that the "electronic" version of King's story was written (in 1999) by the author: the subject for the novel was tremendously realistic; that year, in fact, Stephen King was injured following a car accident.
Review by Undying1
