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ROADGAMES (1981)

Posted by Daniel Metz

Dir. Richard Franklin
Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, 12/9/09, 10:00pm

If I had to rename this film, I would title it Rear View Mirror. Roadgames, or Road Games as it was advertised as part of the Terror Tuesdays series, is a thriller about a truck driver who becomes obsessed with a series of discovered body parts scattered and buried along the highway. He begins to see clues in dark green van, and his suspicions lead him to do some risky investigations. Along the way, he picks up a hitchhiker, played by the surprisingly beautiful Jamie Lee Curtis, who gets in on the action.

Sound familiar? Yes, like last week’s Tremors, Roadgames too shows the profound influence of Hitchcock on exploitation cinema. This time, the influence is much more explicit, however; Curtis’ character, a hitchhiker, is nicknamed Hitch. Yes, like that Hitch. Her real name is Pat, which, if I recall was Alfred’s daughter’s name. I am not sure if that was intentional.

Either way, this film is spot-on with Rear Window. The pacing, the themes, the camera work, and the ending (with even an homage to the flashing light-bulb thing in the Hitch film, if I’m not mistaken) are all derivative of the earlier Jimmy Stewart film. There is one scene where the protagonist used binoculars in the desert. The camera takes the perspective of the binoculars. He is looking at what the suspect is doing, than he moves it up his body and finds that the man is looking right at him! When the shot began, I said to myself, “Hitchcock would do it this way.” I was greatly satisfied to see that Richard Franklin did too.

That is not to say that this film is without merit. Far from it; like Brian De Palma’s great late ’70s early ’80s Hitchcock films (of which, Body Double or Dressed to Kill are probably his best known but Obsession is the best), Roadgames adds to the mythos of the Hitchcock film. It is the work of a dedicated apprentice, but demonstrates that the director is, in fact, quite capable of outdoing the style of the great master.

The composition in the film is strikingly beautiful, particularly the shots of women. The director, or perhaps the cinematographer Vincent Monton (who was nominated for an AFI award [Australian, not American] for this film, by the way), illustrates in his color scheme and blocking/composition that he loves women. The opening murder scene is abstractly done with great smoke and light while a beautiful naked woman strums almost Teiji Ito-style on a guitar. Her breasts rest firmly against the hollow body, creating a beautiful image that is, unfortunately, strangled with a guitar string. Still, it is a breathtaking sequence. This attention to painterly details repeats throughout the film.

While I’m talking about style, there are also a few 360 degree pans. That is a bold shot, one that cannot be pulled off too easily. I think it works here, and it begins to make it feel like an Antonioni film.

There is a nice motif here, too, about the road. Ever since On The Road and perhaps before, the open highway as an image has come to stand as a synecdoche of the country it connects. Here, the highway is represented as one neighborhood where only familiar faces roam. On the highway, we see five cars and one hitchhiker. Of those, there isn’t a single caravan that we only see once, and each turn out to be important plot points to boot. This creates an almost surreal feeling about the story, as if its maybe some kind of a dream. This is Hitchcock’s narrative economy, I guess, but it also has fascinating implications when reflected upon the trucking industry that underlies this film.

I’m looking forward to next Terror Tuesday, and seeing what Hitchcock film I’ll get to compare it to. Next week is Q the Winged Serpent, a story about a Quetzalcoatl that attacks New York. I’m thinking Frenzy?