Alan (Jonathan Jackson) embarks on a 100-mile hitchhike to see his mother in the hospital.  Along the way he must confront his many demons – both living and dead – and in the end make the ultimate choice that will mean life of death for him and his mother.

“There’s nothing like a brush with death to make you appreciate life,” ponders Alan.  And who would know better than Stephen King?  He wrote the novella this film is based on while recuperating from his own brush with death.  Riding the Bullet is an old school campfire tale with heart, or, as King himself called it, “simple but fun.  Gets the job done.”  That said, this film really belongs to Mick Garris, who took King’s short novella, made some interesting changes (setting it in 1969, for example, as opposed to the modern setting of the original story), and turned in a solid B movie in every sense of the word.  Having virtually made a career out of adapting his work, Garris seems to get King better than others, and there is a respect for the material that in itself adds a layer to the film, a heart that is too often missing.

Riding the Bullet is steeped in the optimism of the 1960’s, the feeling that society was changing and the future was uncertain; anything could happen.  In this way, the entire film is a deep – and deeply personal – meditation on sixties optimism (or what some might now consider sixties naïveté), life, death, and getting old.  The film is an actor’s piece, and the cast is great all around.  At the center is Jonathan Jackson as Alan, conveying the perfect sense of stoned disbelief; he makes it familiar without turning it into a joke.  Cliff Robertson is creepy-funny as the dying old man who carries Alan a few miles down the road, and Nicky Katt is fun to watch as the weird-o hippie who first picks Alan up.  The standout in the cast is David Arquette, and George Staub.  Arquette will probably never be accused of being a great actor, but he really excels in the right role, and that is what he has here, imbuing Staub with the right amount of menacing fun.

To call Riding the Bullet a horror film would not be totally accurate.  The horror is in Alan’s discovery, but the film itself is more a nostalgic, coming-of-age movie.  At the heart of the film is a good story, well told, something every film needs but is hard to come by in this age of movies that are long on effects and short on just about everything else.  As Alan moves down the road, there is the sense that something is building, that there is something waiting for him at the end of his journey that will change him forever.

None of this is to say that Riding the Bullet is a perfect film.  The worst thing that can be said about the film is that the style is horribly conventional; the how of the film is not nearly as interesting as the what.  Too often we move away from any authentic period flavor into a modern, hindsight view of the sixties, the idea that everyone at that time was smoking pot and digging on “mind expansion.”  That cheapens certain scenes.  The ending of the film lingers too long and becomes overly sentimental, and there is a lot of voice over that is just extraneous.  There is more tragedy in watching characters speculate about things that we know will never happen that there is in being reminded through voice over of what never came to pass.  There is something bittersweet about watching characters that are so much more optimistic than we are.  All of this is offset by some great touches, particularly the brief film-within-the-film, also called Riding the Bullet, which looks like every great horror/road movie that was never made.

Riding the Bullet had a limited theatrical release, next to nothing in the way of advertising, and the critical reception to the film was overwhelmingly negative, but time will be good to this film.  Now on DVD, this will be one of those movies that people discover and wonder how they missed it in theaters.  The story works on many levels, and the cast is great all around.

Riding the Bullet is presented in the original 1.85:1 shooting ratio, and the transfer is pristine.  Most of the film takes place at night, and all the black levels are expertly translated.  The overall color levels are vibrant, and the cinematography is given much justice.

This DVD offers a 5.1 Dolby Digital track and a 2.0 Dolby Digital track, both in English.  The presentation is sharp, and all levels come through clearly.

Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Mick Garris: Garris, who has made several film adaptations of King’s work, talks about his struggles in getting the film made, working with a low budget that became a lower budget at the last minute, and how certain scenes were shot.

Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Mick Garris, Producer Joel T. Smith, Actor Jonathan Jackson, Director of Photography Robert New, and Special FX Supervisors Greg Nicotero and Robert Berger: Garris plays the moderator in this roundtable commentary.  The men talk about working together and what everyone brought to the table, how scenes were shot and creating the overall mood of the film.

Shooting the Bullet: A series of seven short featurettes that focus on the making of the film.  The features cover everything from make-up to the cars to Alan’s artwork and much more.  We see how ideas evolved and how scenes were shot.

Riding the Bullet Artwork Gallery: Artist Bernie Wrightson created all of Alan’s artwork for the film, and here we get to see it in great detail.

Trailer: The original theatrical trailer.