Product Description

It's all fun and games whene two brothers (Paul Walker and Steve Zahn) take off cross-country to bring home a pretty college friend (Leelee Sobieski). But the jokes end when a prank backfires and they find themselves stalked by a vengeful trucker who won't give up his relentless chase until somebody pays with their life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61421 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-03-12
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
Joy Ride follows the familiar conventions of road-movie thrillers with enough vitality to make everything old seem new again. A confirmed master of neo-noir suspense, director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) sets a consistent tone of humor and horror as Lewis (Paul Walker) and his black-sheep brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) drive from Salt Lake City to pick up Lewis's friend Venna (Leelee Sobieski) in Boulder, Colorado. En route, they play a practical joke via CB radio, inviting vengeful terror as an unseen trucker (voiced with exquisite menace by Silence of the Lambs villain Ted Levine) pursues them with relentless, homicidal aggression. Inevitable comparisons to Steven Spielberg's Duel fail to appreciate Dahl's unique talent for energizing B-movie formulas while injecting his own brand of rib-tickling excitement. While Zahn deserves extra credit in his first top-billed role, Joy Ride wins a badge of honor for everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
For the first half hour, John Dahl's latest movie is true to the joviality of its title. By the end, nothing could be more ironic, unless you think it is joyful to be locked in a motel room with a shotgun tied to the door handle. Dahl, as he proved in "The Last Seduction" and "Red Rock West," has a gift for unearthing laughter in the dark, and the new picture marks a welcome return to form. Steve Zahn and Paul Walker play a couple of brothers, driving across country with only a CB radio for entertainment. A practical joke goes badly wrong, and they become the terrified quarry of a man-or a voice-called Rusty Nail. The film belongs to Steve Zahn: his helpless tendency both to taunt the world and to cringe with dread at the consequences has never been put so smartly to the test. With Leelee Sobieski as a semi-girlfriend. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

One ride you should not miss!
I'm happy to report that Joy Ride is NOT just another teen slasher movie, nor is it a Scream clone, instead, it is one of the better thriller/horror film that came out of Hollywood recently. The Thomas brothers while traveling towards New Jersey decided to pull a prank on a stranger by using a CB radio, posing as a female they agreed to a midnight rendezvous with a trucker who calls himself 'Rusty Nail.' Hoping to get a good laugh, the brothers found instead that the joke is on them as they flees from the psychotic stranger out for revenge.

What makes Joy Ride scary is its believability, this kind of thing can actually happen, probably not to the extreme as portrayed in the film, but people do play jokes on each other constantly, and some do get carried away. Composed of a relatively young cast, Steve Zahn (Fuller Thomas,) Paul Walker (Lewis Thomas) and Leelee Sobieski (Venna) did a good job keeping the audiences attention glued to the screen, the pacing was actually well done because there was not a dull moment on this road trip. Unfortunately, with this genre there is usually little character development, which is true for Joy Ride, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing here.

Joy Ride was an entertaining and short movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, the direction was tight and the script was decent, it's a great film for adults and teenager alike. Just remember, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and do unto others as you would have them done to you.

"Duel" For The Millenium
In "Joy Ride", the Director John Dahl (Last Seduction, Red Rock West, Rounders)pounds you right from the beginning and never lets up.

It's "Duel" updated for the millenium and for a contemporary audience.

Two brothers, Paul Walker (Fast and The Furious) and Steve Zahn (Shattered Glass) take a road trip to pick up Walker's college girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski).

Using a CB radio, they play a practical joke on a trucker who turns out to be the biggest movie big rig psycho since Rutger Hauer planted a finger in C.Thomas Howell's french fries.


What the trucker, whose CB handle is "Rusty Nail" does to exact revenge keeps the audience on edge for the film's 97 minutes.

(Note: one of the sequences in the chillingly directed and edited climax cribs gleefully from "Silence of the Lambs")

Dahl pulls of the the difficult challenge of blending scares with a few laughs with little effort..he's a wildly talented director with a taste for hip, off beat material.


Dahl directs from a script by JJ Abrams ("Lost") and Clay Tarver

The voice of "Rusty Nail" is supplied by the great Ted Levine.

Note: not long before "Joy Ride" began shooting, the studio decided it wanted a different ending, supposedly a few alternate endings were shot, one of which, running 29 minutes, is included on the DVD which also includes Eric Roberts vocal audition as Rusty Nail...Roberts obviously lost the gig to Levine.

For Good Creepy Fun Give Joy Ride a Try
I am surprised at some of the negative reviews posted here?! I guess some of these folks thought they were taking home "Hamlet" and got "Joy Ride" by mistake??? Sure there isn't much character development, sure you may have seen this premise before, and yes "Joy Ride" is a B-Movie.....and it's a great one! I don't know what more you could ask for with a movie like "Joy Ride", it gave me plenty of chills, and had me really rooting for the two brothers who get on the wrong side of a homicidal truck driver. "Joy Ride" may resemble "Duel", "Breakdown", "Highwaymen" or any one of a hundred thriller "road" movies, but the story is definately edge-of-your-seat fun, and worth adding to your collection if you are a horror fan. Within the first 10 minutes you get sucked into this thriller and it does not let go. Ted Levine is perfect as Rusty Nail (you forget how menacing he can be after watching him as Stottlemeyer on "Monk"), and if Levine's voice oozing through the cb radio doesn't give you goosebumps, you should really go have your blood pressure checked! "Joy Ride" is the perfect movie to watch late at night while you cower under the blankets.