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10 Terrifying and Twisted Horror Movie Road Trips to Hell

Some horror movies exaggerate real-world terrors for effect, but road trip horror nails the frightening prospect of cramped cars and killers.
Road Trip Horror
By  · Published on October 22nd, 2020

5. Joy Ride (2001)

Joy Ride

Road tripping from California to New Jersey, college kid Lewis (Paul Walker) has plans to drive his childhood crush Venna (Leelee Sobieski) home from her college in Colorado. He’s forced to make a pitstop first to bail out his wisecracking brother Fuller (Steve Zahn), and together they come fender to fender with a crazed truck driver who has a penchant for absolute depravity.

Released less than a month after 9/11, Joy Ride didn’t exactly light up the box office, but because of its unconventional slasher style, the movie feels even more electric and energizing than it was upon release. In a role we only hear and never see, Ted Levine delivers a deeply somber drawl that is perfectly suited for a killer who became the victim of a uniquely cruel prank that immediately draws to mind the mean spirited inciting incidents of films like Terror Train or Slaughter High.

There are loads of leaps in logic to be found here, but Joy Ride is a thrilling successor to seminal horror flick The Hitcher, just with a dab of Duel and a helping of Maximum Overdrive to make the central killer big rig practically feel alive. Oh, did I forget to also mention that J. J. Abrams wrote this? (Jacob Trussell)


4. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Anyone who’s been on a long enough road trip through America has passed a roadside home that looks like it could belong to some real-life cannibals, or at the very least has stopped at a clichéd creepy gas station in the middle of nowhere. Tope Hooper’s classic film takes us to the drive-by spots, the dangerous areas of rural America that make you instinctively lock your doors and speed by a little faster.

The film’s central group of Texan teens isn’t exactly headed to Disneyland in the first place, but visiting one of their grandfather’s graves. Their trip takes an even darker turn, though, when they stray out on the wild roads of Texas a bit too late, running out of gas and finding chainsaw-wielding Leatherface and his kin instead. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre takes us off the beaten path, to a horror landscape where you’d be lucky to catch a passing pickup truck if you needed one, and the result is one of the best movies the genre has to offer. (Valerie Ettenhofer)


3. Duel (1971)

Duel

Steven Spielberg was just twenty-five when he directed Duel, and as if that’s not annoying enough it’s also a fantastic movie. Dennis Weaver stars — after Spielberg and producers toyed around with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Gregory Peck — as a traveling businessman who’s harassed by a big rig on a lonely stretch of desert highway.

Originally made-for-television but subsequently beefed up with extra footage for European theaters, the film is a masterclass in tension and suspense on a limited budget and character roster. Richard Matheson’s script, based on his own short story, is an equally brilliant lesson in economy, with dialogue-free stretches and confidence that it’s a tale told in motion and emotion. The question isn’t whether the trucker was human or if the truck was sent from Hell itself, but rather if you could have survived the nightmare yourself. Defensive driving, people. It’s an essential life skill. (Rob Hunter)


2. The Hitcher (1986)

The Hitcher

Robert Harmon‘s The Hitcher has been a favorite of mine since its release, and I will gladly talk about it given any opportunity. Sure, sometimes I use the time to berate Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert for going on The Tonight Show before its opening weekend and literally spoiling the ending for viewers nationwide simply because they hated the film. But usually, I’m content just singing its praises. (And clearly, sometimes I feel compelled to do both.)

C. Thomas Howell stars as a young guy paid to drive a car across the country for someone who’s moved, but his journey is interrupted after picking up Rutger Hauer, who’s hitchhiking in a downpour. Shit gets ugly real fast as the older man proceeds to taunt and terrorize his prey over the next few days with a string of dead bodies, a frame-up, and an otherworldly sense of menace.

Like the next decade’s Breakdown, this film delivers plenty of big stunts and practical set-pieces against an alternately beautiful and unsettling desert backdrop. The direct-to-video sequel is terrible, the remake is an abomination, and Siskel and Ebert were dicks to spoil it for people, but the film has outlived them all as one hell of a thriller. (Rob Hunter)


1. Race With the Devil (1975)

Race With The Devil

Dang hippies, amirite? Okay, fine, so the devil-worshipers in Race With the Devil aren’t “hippies.” But the point stands: the last thing you want to run into when you’re cruising cross-country is a gaggle of new-age creeps. Especially the kind who dabbles in Satanic orgies and human sacrifice. All that motocrossin’ buddies Roger (Peter Fonda) and Frank (Warren Oates) wanted was to roll along to Aspen in their new RV, double fisting dry martinis and dirt biking at rest stops (wives dutifully in tow, of course). This was supposed to be “the best damn vacation they ever had!”

A state-wide conspiracy of cultists may not be a part of the travel plan, but, like it or not, our hapless road trippers are in for the ride of their lives, frantically in search of help, justice, and a reprieve from the ceaseless onslaught of Texan witches. Some advice: if you’re going to race with the devil, you should probably get a better ride than a Winnebago. (Meg Shields)


Take a break for gas and snacks, but then hit the road again with some more 31 Days of Horror Lists!

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Rob Hunter has been writing for Film School Rejects since before you were born, which is weird seeing as he's so damn young. He's our Chief Film Critic and Associate Editor and lists 'Broadcast News' as his favorite film of all time. Feel free to say hi if you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.