Riding the Bullet

Plot synopsis:
Set in 1969, Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) is a young artist, studying at the University of Maine. He becomes obsessed with death, and believing he is losing his girlfriend, Jessica (Christensen), he tries to commit suicide on his birthday. His friends surprise him, and he cuts himself, which sends him to the hospital. He eventually recovers and decides to accompany them to a John Lennon concert.
Before leaving he receives news that his only living relative, his mother, Jean (Hershey), is in the hospital because of a stroke and is near death. Alan decides to hitchhike to reach the hospital before she dies. On his way there, he has multiple strange encounters with the living and dead. The film ends when Alan, now in his 40's, tells the audience that his mother died of a heart attack while watching television. He married his girlfriend Jessica, but it only lasted four years.
Alan never made it as an artist, but he does go to the theme park every summer in memory of his mother. While walking from the park, a person who looks like his friend George Staub offers him a ride, but he refuses. He tells him to "take your button and get outta here".

Tags: horror

Review:
Sunday, August 1st 2004 was the World Premiere of Stephen King's Riding The Bullet, which was hosted by DIRECTOR MICK GARRIS.The story is set back in 1969.
This is not one of the worse adaptations of Stephen King's work, but it's another one that makes the successful ones (De Palma's "Carrie," Reiner's "Stand by Me," and Kubrick's "The Shining" come immediately to mind) seem all the more remarkable.
It's nice to see Barbara Hershey and Cliff Robertson working, but the film is an incoherent, drug-trippy, red-herring-loaded road movie in which each succeeding segment and flashback builds to a huge....
I've seen IT, I've struggled through the long run of "The Stand", but it is this film which stands out more than any of the other adaptations of Stephen King's work.A chilling narrative of a man traveling across country in the 70s, Riding the Bullet succeeds where many other movies have failed by presenting a personal conflict, that is, one which exists within the main character's mind.I don't think I could've asked for a much better acting job from any of the cast, either.8/10..
But I liked the story, I'm a Stephen King nut, and I enjoy watching films that aren't very well known.
MickGarris, director of Riding The Bullet, is no stranger to adapting the work of Stephen King for the screen, having previously tackled TV versions of Quicksilver Highway, The Stand, and The Shining, and the big screen adaptation of Sleepwalkers.
Naturally, this is also how I felt about Garris's adaptation of Riding The Bullet.Troubled teen Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) is hitch-hiking to see his mother in hospital.
On the way, he encounters many strange people and before his journey is through, he is forced to confront his demons and make some life-changing decisions.I must stress that this is not a horror film; there are spooky moments, but these are not necessarily supernatural, and are more likely the result of the lead character's fertile imagination.
To me, the film was more about not wasting the gift of life, dealing with guilt, and the importance of making good choices.Garris attempts some particularly strange visual gimmickry during the telling of this tale, but I personally found his quirky directorial style to be annoying, and a truly awful performance from David Arquette certainly didn't help matters; only one or two genuinely creepy moments manage to stop this from being a complete waste of time.
Not only am I barely standing watching it, I am also embarrassed that I actually liked the very story the usually atrocious movie is based on.So here comes "Riding the bullet", the movie based on a story I rather enjoyed.
He likes to draw monsters and has hallucinations of shoddy Death creature with heavy-metal background music (oh, the movie is set in 1969 by the way, so good choice with the score, guys!).
Receiving news his mother is dying, a college student decides to hitchhike out to go see her, but as he gets closer and closer to his goal he begins to feel a dangerous supernatural entity is playing games with him and vows to put an end to them before it's too late.This here actually wasn't that bad at times.
The fact that it shows the family history as much as it does is one of the problems, but here it just throws useless scene after another detailing it, then it decides to throw in the flashbacks which barely makes it any better by going to a time that doesn't help revealing important information about the story or why anything is happening, and all they do is add to the confusion which is a really hard task to accomplish.
What is also tough to understand is the motive for the main villain who initially appearing as a sort of Grim Reaper-like figure that spends half the running time talking away with the supposed victim and never tricks them into killing or any other vile activities as there were plenty of available times to do that to pad out the film's running time which really makes little sense here.
Maybe Stephen King's book is good, I have never read it, but this adaptation is a crap.
As a horror film it doesn't scare.As a psychological thriller doesn't get you anxious.I think that they tried to balance between them and fell into the river.The acting though wasn't bad.Music was good too.Haven't read the book to know if the plot sticks to the movie but it was a little swallow.It is a bad replica of the shining with the other characters except the main having anything to offer.Especially the grim reaper character who was just for laughs.Do your self a favor.Don't lose your time watching this movie.I like horror movies but this ain't one.It is more like a comedy with bad acting except the main character who wasn't anything special either..
Join Alan on all hallows eve, 1969, as he hitchhikes home from college to be with his mother who has had a stroke.I have a love hate relationship with Stephen King and I would have long ago dismissed him as trash if the first book of his I had read wasn't "The gunslinger" (actually his first book, and subtly brilliant if hard to read).
What mister King realises of course is that the great Homeric task of the modern American is to reconcile their relationship with their parents (Ulysses was only trying to get back to his wife, which says something about dysfunctional marriages in classical Greece).The movie stuffs around the time line a lot.
I am undecided if it was too much, because half way through you knew when things were not real, or if it was just right, by the end you began to get confused again about what was real and what was imaginary.The result is entertaining, funny, scary, thought provoking, and basically an interesting story, without much intelligent plot over the usual clever Stephen King idea.I can well understand why some people loved it and others hated it.
Unfortunately, if you've ever ridden one of those old wooden roller-coasters like "The Bullet," you know that they also bounce and trounce you around and can give you a little bit of a head ache--and that's also what this film does.It's really difficult to keep a viewer hooked when the film tries to be so much--it's a comedy/horror/romance/drama.
In the end, it goes for the same tone as some other Stephen King adaptations like "Stand By Me" or "The Green Mile"...even though it didn't begin that way.
That's what this movie is made up of, there's no real story and the ending is the kind of mawkish crap you'd get from a fifteen year old bashing out their first novel.I couldn't really get into any of the characters, especially the protagonist who just seemed to be whiny and other than having his joint stolen by the grim reaper had little to moan about in the grand scheme of things.
The guy is VERY talented, don't get me wrong; and he certainly has an excellent imagination and is able to come up with some great ideas and stories.Now, let me break away from a deeper analysis of King himself and get to the film here at hand.
Apparently opinions about his approach to King's work are VERY divided.This is one of those MANY films where if you are a stolid 'Realist' and don't get into any form of Fantasy at all, then you likely will not be very impressed with this movie.
This movie is serious enough to tip the scales a bit more toward the kind of film that I prefer.FWIW, the thing about Stephen King, and I'm SURE that many others will disagree if they really like his work, and the very reason why I gave up on him (or more honestly got tired of him) is that to me, almost EVERY story follows the exact same pattern.
I hadn't heard much about the movie, but couldn't quite believe it really was that long, especially since I knew King's story and couldn't imagine how you could stretch it that much.Now, after having seen the film myself, I know that it is only 100 minutes long and that the story is not enough for even those 100 minutes.
The movie does indeed feel as if it is 3 hours long, because there is not really a plot and because it is so full of distractions that it never finds its way around.The plot should be that Alan (Jonathan Jackson) hitchhikes to his hometown, because his mother (Barbara Hershey) had a stroke, but is picked up by a strange man named George (David Arquette) who maybe is already dead.
None of the things Alan experiences really seem plausible, at least not if they all happen on the same night.When you watch a movie, you are aware that there has to be a point where it gets going, sort of like a starting point.
There are flashbacks to Alan's past, which are set up by an endless series of old video footage during the opening credits, some of which is quite unlikely or even impossible to have been filmed with a video camera.With such a disjointed mess of isolated episodes and repetitious hallucinations it is no surprise that movie feels twice as long as it is.
Every time I watch this adaptation of a Stephen King story about a college student hitchhiking home to see his ill mother, my mind starts to wander and I either doze off or change the channel and then switch back occasionally to see if anything has happened.
Mick Garris ('The Stand', 'The Shining (TV)') has not strayed too far from the path with this macabre tale of a hitchhiker who is offered rides from a handful of weird and wonderful characters one Halloween night.The year is 1969 and Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) learns that his mother (Barbara Hershey) is dying of cancer, so instead of going to see Lennon and McCartney, the troubled teenager is forced to hitchhike back to his hometown.
Parker is then forced to confront all the demons from his past if he is to survive what could be the last ride of his life.Like the original story, the film has all the makings of a campfire tale.
Alan Parker is a college student who likes to draw pictures, but he is always thinking about death and in many ways wants to die.
Alan has to make the unexpected choice that will mean life or death for him or his mother.Directed by Mick Garris (Critters 2:The Main Course, Quicksilver Highway, Desperation) made his first theatrical release film since Stephen King's Sleepwalkers.
King says that "Riding the Bullet" is the best of the independent films from his work since "Stand by Me".
Movie gets a 10 in my book excellent twists and story lines, very original and not like a lot of other Stephen King stories.
The highlight of the movie is Jonathan Jackson, who pulls off a rather difficult role as Alan, a twenty-something college student who's hitchhiking home to attend to his mother who has recently suffered a stroke.During his journey, he encounters a number of strange individuals, including the always entertaining David Arquette.
The longest hallucination is when he bumps his head in a cemetery and is out for a prolonged period of time as he meets George, the Elvis wan-a-bee driving the Plymouth Fury.I didn't read the Stephen King story so I don't know if this was a good or bad screen adaptation.
Riding the Bullet (2004) * 1/2 (out of 4) Stephen King adaptation about troubled teen Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) is about to go to a John Lennon concert when he gets word from his neighbor that his mother (Barbara Hershey) has suffered a stroke and is in the hospital.
Alan must hitchhike his way through the state as he thinks about his own life, his death and runs into a wild range of people from a twisted farmer (Cliff Robertson) to some drunk rednecks and eventually a stranger (David Arquette) that he probably shouldn't have gotten a ride from.
But when the movie came to an end i couldn't help but think that i was very entertained by this mans journey to see his mother and to find out what kind of a person he really was...especially when it came to life and death.
With respect to the previous reviewer, I believe that die-hard King fans (especially those who have read Riding the Bullet) will be, if anything, more disappointed in this movie.
Get hold of a printed copy of the original story Riding the Bullet (collected in Everything's Eventual by Stephen King) and let the director of your own imagination put it up on the screen of your mind..
O.K. To start off I have read many of Stephen Kings books and short stories, and have loved them all.
The acting is good but the actors are nobody's (yes David Arquette is a nobody too).So, in conclusion, if your looking for a film to investigate the mind of a character and his internal struggle, rent this movie.
I didn't think this flick was all that bad, but when I plug it into my list of Stephen King-based movies I've seen so far, it comes in dead last out of twenty one titles.
An interesting point in retrospect is that you don't really know if the first two drivers who picked up Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) were apparitions or not, the way George Staub (David Arquette) turned out to be.
How these aging actors cannot see how silly they look....anyhoo...we yet get ANOTHER one of Stephen King's lame adaptations from a short story...a moral Tale of Death that is a fine premise however it plays out like Garris took a gaggle of Stephen King's short stories, wadded them up and pasted the pages together...it really is a mess...there are maybe a couple of interesting scares but thats it...the first problem with the movie is lead Jonathan Jackson who definitely represents the dark and brooding "suffering" effeminate male who speaks in an annoying drone that is quite common for the Male of the 2000's..Jackson is just awful as the lead and cannot garner any empathy or sympathy with his drony lackluster acting...I think this movie was probably aimed at the conflicted early 20 somethings...the generation who all got a trophy for existing...the best eye opening parts of this movie was the campy performance of art teacher Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer...very funny and I thought appropriate..and the GORGEOUS Catherine Devine just sitting there as a nude model...that was about the only two scenes that animated me other than snickering at Barbara Hershey-Stein's pie hole.....
Alan manages to get several rides as he gets closer to Lewiston but finally ends up in the red Plymouth Fury of George Staub (David Arquette) whom Alan becomes to believe is dead, George offers him a deal in which he has to make a choice whether his mother or himself dies that very night...This American, German & Canadian co-production was written, co-produced & directed by Mick Garris & was based on the internet publish story Riding the Bullet by Stephen King, any horror film fan worth anything will know that generally speaking Stephen King books don't make particularly good films although it seems his name sells so I guess people will continue to make make crappy films based on his usually great work.
At 100 minutes long Riding the Bullet is watchable & if you can get into the sloppy narrative & like the character's then you may enjoy it, I didn't think it was terrible as it had a few moments here & there but overall the film feels shallow, unfocused & almost unfinished.
A strange sort of road trip, dark comedy horror thriller that I didn't hate but didn't love either.Mick Garris seems to have a thing about Stephen King adaptations having worked on as either writer or director on the likes of Sleepwalkers (1992) & Quicksilver Highway (1997) as well as the television series The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), Desperation (2006) & the recent Bag of Bones (2011).
I thought this was great, it seemed every single Stephen king movie dealt with someone being terrorized by something...and that just...well, I'm a slasher fan, so let's say I'd seen it done better.I loved the depth of the story, the lead was so refreshing, the loner-type.
Stephen King's fans won't be too disappointed---just don't think you're watching Riding The Bullet.Recommended..
This is a film that should be watched and not for its author may I add, as Stephen King can write in various ways but many only think true horror when they hear his name.
As I am a die-hard Stephen King fan from way back, I could appreciate the subtleties of the work and the "hidden meaning" that was attempted to be relayed, but for those that were watching it with me that were not familiar with the author or his work, it was like a bad acid trip.I was surprised that my guests found the movie to be more of a comedy than anything else.
Not every driver is ideal though.Stephen King is probably my favourite author (in that I like both the general area he covers and also his style) and it is always interesting to see filmed adaptations of his work.
If anyone has read the short story "Riding The Bullet", they know this movie has strayed far from it's original path.
I love King adaptations and some of them are good, some of them are not and this one is just very different.Riding The Bullet is the story of Alan Parker, a college student in the late sixties who is having a hard time with life and finds himself fascinated with death until it stares him in the face.