Joy Ride 3 Movie Review: This is Not Rusty Nail

Runtime:96 minutes
Release Date:June 17, 2004
Rating:R
Director:Declan O'Brien


I almost didn't even want to write this review because the movie is so bad but I'll do my best.


Joy Ride 3 opens with a girl clearly strung out on either meth or crack fooling around with a guy in bed. Literally three minutes after the movie stars, they're having some rough and tumble sex, but she stops him when she realizes they're out of drugs. He comes up with an idea to talk to a truck driver, lure him into the room, and rob him because all drivers carry large amounts of drugs. She makes the mistake of hitting on good old Rusty and inviting him to their room.


When Rusty learns of their scheme, which he apparently does before he gets there, he attacks them both. He then straps them to the front of his truck and gives them a chance. If they can hold on for a certain amount of time, he'll let them live. If they let go, the chains holding them down will drag them under the truck. The girl lets go, and they both die. It's a great way to open the movie but it just goes downhill from there.


There are a bunch of highly annoying twenty somethings planning to enter some random race. As a NASCAR fan, I have my questions about what level they're racing at and what's going on. I also didn't bother to learn any names because most of the characters seem fairly interchangeable. There's the douchy guy, the slightly less douchy guy, the annoying female girlfriend, the other annoying gal, etc..


After stopping along the way for some food, they decide to take the race car, which is very expensive buy the way, out of the trailer and drive it the rest of the way to the race, which is a very stupid thing to do because those cars aren't decide for regular roads. They naturally come across Rusty, piss him off, and he decides to kill them all.


Joy Ride is one of those hidden gem movies that I found by accident. Featuring the too cute for his own good and gone too soon Paul Walker and the adorable and hilarious Steve Zahn, a bought a copy back in the days when I would buy new movies that looked interesting without knowing anything about the plot. I love it so much that I recommended it to all of my friends. Sadly, Joy Ride 3 makes me wish they had stopped with the first film.


One of the things, okay the thing, that made that movie so great was Ted Levine. His voice has that deep and throaty quality that makes you want to look under your bed and check your closets before going to sleep at night. Instead of letting us actually see the psychopathic Rusty, we only saw him in profile and heard his voice. Our imaginations let us figure out what he looked like.


Joy Ride 3 apparently decided that we need to see the killer. Just as I finished telling my roommate that we never saw Rusty's face, the film cut to a scene of his face as he stared down at a victim, and trust me, he's nothing to make you check under the bed. He looks like some random guy off the street, and seeing his face really takes away from the horror. They show Rusty full on so many times that it seems like just another generic slasher movie. I'd skip this one and reach for the original instead.