Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet

(2004) *

Okay, we all know that Stephen King adaptations are very hit-or-miss. In fact, I think one could argue that most are misses. I’d even go one step further to say that this is also true about Mr. King’s novels over the past decade, but there’s no time for such a discussion here, we’re in Horrorthon people! Riding the Bullet is based on King’s first e-book. As a short story, Riding the Bullet is a pretty good read. Set in the early 70s, the story concerns a college hippie who must hitchhike home to visit his ailing mother. Along the way he meets up, literally, with various ghosts and demons from his past. King is great at capturing the Woodstock-era (i.e., Hearts in Atlantis) and as a short story, Riding the Bullet is a pretty good character piece. As a film it’s dreadful. Despite opening with some good, psychedelic 60s music (e.g., Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermint”), the director is never able to find the right tone. Too many he relies on cheap scares. You see, the protagonist, Jonathan, has a vivid, and morbid, imagination and we never know whether something we see is real or just Jonathan’s dang imagination kicking in again. The “scares” are also stupid. For example, at one point Jonathan is watching a crow eating road kill and the crow turns his head and says, “What the fuck are you looking at?” What I found the most irritating was the director’s choice to have 2 Jonathans on screen as Jonathan talked to himself (e.g., think of Seinfeld playing chess with his penis) throughout his journey. Because the short story is almost entirely about Jonathan’s cognitions as he goes on his journey, I’m certain the director thought that he was being clever. He wasn’t. Scareless and ultimately pointless, Riding the Bullet merely confirmed what we already knew, King is difficult to film. Against my better judgment I’m going to state an obvious cliché, avoid this ride.