Riding the Bullet (2004)

Directed by Mick Garris. Starring Jonathan Jackson, David Arquette, Barbara Hershey, Erika Christensen, Cliff Robertson, Nicky Katt, Chris Gauthier, Robin Nielsen. [R]

Lethargic, nonsensical horror film, based on a Stephen King novella (the “world’s first mass-market e-book”) has an unsympathetic protagonist and a hodgepodge of incidents, flashbacks and visions that don’t add up to anything worthwhile. It’s 1969, and Jackson’s mordant art student has run-ins with the living and the dead when hitchhiking home to visit his ailing mother (Hershey). Gimmicky and dramatically inert; about an hour in, Arquette injects a little jittery energy into the proceedings as a driver who may very well be Death Itself, but it’s not enough to redeem this confused and immediately-forgettable effort. Features one of the most unimaginative collection of late-60s needle-drops you’ll ever hear in a movie. Matt Frewer makes an appearance.

33/100