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I am actually surprised to see this movie has gotten as high a rating as it has, as honestly it doesn't deserve it. Unless you are a die hard King fan this probably won't hold much appeal to you. The almost-horror premise involves a young man's trip to visit his mother who has been hospitalized from a stroke. Along the way he comes to terms with his past and current fears involving death in an almost 'Chistmas Carol' like way. The main flaw with the movie is that it may have a good theme about the value of life, but the 'fantasies' that the lead lives in lend a horror aspect that is mostly conveyed as trite and forced. The acting and effects were convincing enough for what it is (though much of the effects that are supposed to scare us involve menacing conversation), but overall it was too uneven to really deliver either a decent horror or a good coming to terms movie. A good choice for a Sunday night when nothing else is on.

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. Of all the directors that have turned King's blockbuster books into movies, Garris seems to be the one of those best able to capture King's literary style on film. This is great news for fans of King's work, but not so great for me; I've always struggled with his books, finding them something of a chore to work through. 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. It is ironic that, for a film about 'making good choices', the makers of this movie sure seem to have made some bad ones.

Not being a big King fan, I don't think I could've asked for more. 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.

Okay, so most of Stephen King's books which have made the transition to film have been a little dubious to say the least. However, they always seem to be at least watchable. This one isn't.

It's about a student who learns his mother has had a stroke. Therefore he decides to hitchhike home to see her in hospital. Ignoring the fact that he doesn't seem to have any mode of transport or finances to take public transport, he sets off.

What follows is one random scene after the next. It's like the whole film is just his encounters along the way. Yes, some are well done and quite creepy or unsettling. However, there is simply no story here. He meets one weird character. He leaves them. Rinse and repeat.

Like I say, it has its creepy moments. Plus the acting is decent enough. There just isn't a story here at all. The young man starts at university. He ends up by his mother's side. Along the way are a few instances of weirdness. If you get bored (and I sure did), you can even skip chapters on the DVD. Each chapter is basically one weird/random encounter with a stranger. Therefore you can effectively skip the entire middle part of the film (while he's on the road) and still not miss anything and understand it completely.

Definitely one to avoid. Stick to Pet Sematery.

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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. Jonathan Jackson does a fine job of playing a self-absorbed and death-fixated jerk. David Arquette does a fine job of playing a weirdo, which I know comes as a shock, but this one is threatening. 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.... mind-numbing yawn. If you fast-forward to long segments you may miss some details but in the end, you won't care.