So Joy Ride 3 needed watching to round out the trilogy, I reviewed the first two which you can check out HERE! and HERE! Both exceeded what I expected and now I was hoping the third film would follow that pattern.
Director: Declan O’Brien
Writers: Clay Tarver (based on the characters created by), J.J. Abrams (based on the characters created by)
Run Time: 95 minutes
Rusty Nail is back and this time he’s even more slashery than the last two films, although he does stalk and play games with his potential victims the tenseness that made the first film so good is pretty much replaced by a man using a truck to kill people.
This time it’s a bunch of dimwitted racers and their racer girlfriends who fall victim to Rusty. It all starts with a couple of crack heads having sex and taking drugs, then the female crack head runs out of crack and they decide to lure a truck driver to them and take his drugs. Rusty answers their call over the CB radio and tells them he doesn’t have any drugs, this doesn’t put the crack heads off they send a naked picture to Rusty and decide they’ll knock him out and take his money.
As you’d expect from these half baked crack heads things don’t go according to plan, Rusty arrives and beats them before tying a chain round them attached to his truck. The crack heads are on the bonnet, if they let go the chain pulls them under the truck. Good Old Rusty sorts the crack heads out in what’s possibly the best scene in the film.
Enter the race drivers cocky, young, good looking (at least they think they are) and annoying everything you’d want in some potential victims. On their way to a race they decide to test the car out on the road, one of them gets cocky and plays games with a truck cutting in front of him. Little do they know that the truck is being driven by a complete freaking lunatic.
Rusty really doesn’t like this lot and as usual kidnaps one of them offering to trade them back in exchange for their pretty race car, they agree but as you’d expect theses idiots try to be clever and cross Rusty, lets face it after an hour or so of the film this really isn’t going to work is it? They end up leaving someone else behind and Rusty rigs up a pretty nasty torture device. After some games, kills and chases we are treated to a pretty brutal final act and like all good horror films should end there’s a real possibility of some more Rusty.
The Good
- There’s some decent kills especially in the opening scene.
- I quite like Rusty, sure there’s no real development of his character but he does make a few puns and who doesn’t like a pun spinning killer?
- Fair bit of gore.
- One of the characters you think will be a weak moron actually ends up being quite likable.
- More victims for Rusty to play with.
The Bad
- Lacks the tension of the first film and becomes more of a slasher movie than both the first and second film.
- They go to meet Rusty and Jordan tells them not to ring the police, they get to the meeting point and Jordan then tells them to go find a gas station and ring the police, WTF?!?!?!?!
- Not many likable characters.
- We get to see Rusty’s face.
Other than that there’s nothing glaringly wrong with this film, like I mentioned it lacks the tension of the first film and the characters in this are nowhere near as good as the other first films or even the second bunch. It’s not a terrible film but it’s not as good as the others. I do like the fact that the ending leaves it open for another film, with a better script we could get another more enjoyable movie.
Overall Score 5.5/10
Acid Horrors 