Last looks are called and we steal away under the video village tent to Morneau’s side to watch the take on the monitor. Terezakis is fighting time – an eternal dance that occurs between any crew member and the shooting schedule – and the rain is getting heavier. FX artist Bill Terezakis ( Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) puts the final touches on the actor losing half of his face tonight. Polaroid snapshots are taped to the dashboard and visor – remembrances of the past or potential victims to stalk? Affixed to the ceiling, Rusty’s communication with the outside world – his CB radio, where Walker and Zahn’s troubles began in the first film.īy the driver’s side door, Morneau’s two-camera coverage is focusing on a bartender whose jaw will eventually be torn off by Rusty brandishing a jagged chain. Shotgun shells express the only real danger here. The truck is Rusty’s (natch) and if you took a quick peek inside you’d find this psycho keeps a clean cab. The production is using a community hall it has a school house charm to its architecture but for this evening’s purposes it’s the “Armadillo Bar.” It’s beckoning neon lights in the windows promise warmth and hooch inside, yet the action is currently by black semi parked nearby. Nevertheless, Morneau and company press on to get the coverage they need.įrom our place by the side of a glistening rural road, we stand on the edge of a gravel (well, now mud) parking lot at the corner of 83rd Avenue and 208th Street – roughly a forty-minute drive outside of the city. Utilizing Vancouver’s soggy exteriors in lieu of a genuine Arizona backdrop (upon which this sequel’s plot is set) is the greatest challenge for all – a sentiment that reverberates with frustration or optimism through the crew. Much to everyone’s chagrin, the rain has begun to fall. Unbeknownst to them, they’ve ripped off Rusty’s ride which gives him an open invitation to chase down the lil’ thieves – played by Nick Zano (TV’s “What I Like About You”), Nicki Aycox ( Jeepers Creepers 2), Laura Jordan ( Thr3e) and Kyle Schmid ( The Covenant) – and carry out his murderous thrills. In this direct-to-DVD follow-up arriving in the fall of 2008, two couples steal a seemingly abandoned car when their own breaks down en route to Las Vegas. Which brings us to tonight where Shock welcomes a reprieve from the choked skies of Los Angeles, where raging wildfires have kicked up a sundry of new pollutants, and accepts an offer to head north to Vancouver where Fox and director Louis Morneau have been shooting Joy Ride: End of the Road. “Ride” left Rusty’s whereabouts ambiguous so you damn well should’ve known someday, somehow the thunderous rumbling of his big rig and the familiar modulation of his voice that sounds vaguely like Ted “Buffalo Bill” Levine (’cause it is, but Levine received no face time) would return. Abram’s screenplay connected this trio though an authentic dynamic which helped raise the stakes and empathy when their road trip goes awry thanks to a prank pulled on one pissed off trucker who bestows himself the CB handle Rusty Nail. Relying on the arid, lonely landscapes acting as a surrogate for the urban jungle in Dahl’s film noir Red Rock West, Joy Ride was held afloat by a brisk script with instantly amiable leads played by Paul Walker, Steve Zahn and Leelee Sobieski. Instead of highwaymen, we now have hitchhikers and psychos raging along the asphalt urged onward by the horsepower of their choice – fodder for films like Richard Franklin’s Roadgames, Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher (just you hush about that remake) and Highwaymen and 2001’s actually-pretty-damn-good Joy Ride, directed by John Dahl ( The Last Seduction). The word “highwayman” has obviously lost much of its impact now yet the idea of villains riding the roadways never ran out of fuel. In literature some were romanticized heroes (does that dude Robin Hood ring a bell?), in film, they were usually leering, unkempt figures brandishing weapons. These scoundrels on horseback were once known for robbing unsuspecting saps on traversed paths snaking beyond the city limits. The image and methodology of the common highwayman changed drastically since the term was coined in the 16th century.
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