Road Games | 
| Director: Richard Franklin
Actors: Stacy Keach, Jamie Lee Curtis, Marion Edward, Grant Page, Thaddeus Smith
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $5.29
You Save: $4.69 (47%)
New (29) Used (14) from $3.81
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 58299
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: D12135D
UPC: 013131213591
EAN: 0013131213591
ASIN: B0000844JR
Theatrical Release Date: February 1981
Release Date: June 10, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Stills from Road Games (Click for larger image)
Description
Stacy Keach is Pat Quid, a lone trucker who plays games to keep his sanity on long hauls through the desolate Outback. Jamie Lee Curtis is a free-spirited hitchhiker looking for excitement with a game of her own. And somewhere up ahead is a maniac in a van whose game may be butchering young women along the highway. But when the killer decides to raise the stakes, Quid’s game becomes personala and the rules of this road are about to take some very deadly turns. Director Richard Franklin (PSYCHO II, LINK) packs plenty of Hitchcock-like twists and suspense into this sly shocker that was nominated for four Australian Film Institute Awards and remains one of the most surprising thrillers of the a 80s.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Someone Is Dismembering Hitchhikers And Hiding Their Pieces Throughout The Australian Outback May 30, 2009
J. B. Hoyos (Chesapeake, VA)
"Road Games" is a subtle, visceral shocker from director Richard Franklin ("Psycho II" and "Link"). A maniac is strangling beautiful hitchhikers and butchering them like animals. Could it be the guy in the green van who, early in the morning, watches the garbage being picked up outside his hotel room and buries plastic bags in the middle of the desert? Could it be Pamela Rushworth (scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis of "Halloween," "Prom Night" and "Terror Train"), a runaway hitchhiker who keeps appearing along the highways before finally disappearing just as mysteriously? Or could it be Pat Quid (Stacy Keach of "Mickey Spillane`s Mike Hammer"), a lonely, quirky truck driver; he talks to himself and spies on fellow travelers, imagining what they do for a living, while all the time he is transporting slaughtered pigs to market?
In this Hitchcock-like film, appearances can be very deceiving. "Road Games" is more of a psychological thriller than a slasher flick. It has a low body count and not very much blood and gore. However, it is very tense, especially when Pamela disappears and Quid dreads the worst. The beautiful desolation of the Australian outback adds to the fear and isolation felt by the protagonist, Quid, and the viewer. The outback offers a millions places to hide a corpse. Quid does have one companion during his nightmare - an adorable Dingo; however, since it can't bark, it can not warn him of impending danger.
"Road Games" offers a neat package of thrills, chases, mystery and suspense in the Australian outback. Fans of Jamie Lee Curtis will be a little disappointed to learn that her role is a minor but very important one. Having achieved much fame from "Halloween," her role in "Road Games" was more of a very special guest appearance. Stacy Keach gives a remarkable performance as the truck driver who is unhappy with his station in life. Fans of "vehicular stalker" movies, such as "Hitcher," "Breakdown" and "Joy Ride," will want to see this film. As I wrote earlier, it is not your high body count slasher flick that was made popular during the early eighties. Anchor Bay has provided a wonderful package replete with widescreen presentation, closed captions, a collectable booklet, audio commentary and a new "making of" featurette co-starring Stacy Keach.
 It's like Hitchcock's Rear Window. . . with cars! May 26, 2009
"Eric the Well-Read"
I caught this movie on TV many years ago & thought it was terrific, due largely to a great performance by Stacy Keach as eccentric yet likable "truck driver" Quid ("Just because I happen to drive a truck, that does not make me a TRUCK DRIVER"). His rambling monologues, musings, and witty observations about his fellow motorists add humor, and the chemistry between him and Jamie Lee Curtis seems genuine and not at all forced. Curtis is equally charming (not to mention absolutely stunning), so much so that you wish she had more screen time. The plot is pure Hitchcock as Quid suspects the mysterious driver of a green van to be the culprit behind a string of Jack-the-Ripper-style killings along the highways and byways of Australia. Unfortunately, the more Quid tries to untangle the mystery, the more entangled he becomes as other motorists, and eventually the police, begin suspecting HIM of being killer. This is low-budget suspense at it's very best, and I'm so glad it made the technological jump onto DVD (it even comes with a 6-page booklet containing a mini-essay from someone who seems to think just as highly of this movie as I do). Highly recommended!!! Buy it along with Duel and Rear Window. You won't regret it.
A lost Hitchcockian-inspired gem! April 8, 2009
R. Pepper (Los Angeles)
If you are a fan of suspense films or Hitchcock films, you will easily find yourself loving Road Games. Directed by Richard Franklin (Psycho II) and starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis who was picked to star in this because of her success with horror films at the time. Actually, Curtis has a limited amount of screen time here as the film centers more around Stacy Keach's character who witnesses some strange activity around a motel and believes a man driving a green van is the serial killer murdering young women in the area. There is nice character development, suspense and even highly entertaining moments. Fans of road movies like Duel, Breakdown and Joyride should enjoy Road Games because it ranks amongst the best of them! The DVD Anchor Bay put together is nice as with most of their releases and there is a "making-of" special feature. I liked the music score in this too which is always a plus. Road Games is a lost treasure that hopefully more people will discover. It can easily be watched again and again.
A suspenseful souffle cooked up by Richard Franklin, Stacy Keach and a serial killer with a taste for butchering September 20, 2008
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
"I'm not fond of bloodletting on screen unless it has a real purpose," says the director of Road Games, Richard Franklin. "I'd much rather imply something. I liked the idea of the meat going to the supermarket and being sold with the possibility that two of the pieces of meat might have been long pig."
Road Games is a fine movie, a clever and often amusing film packed with creepy suspense and the possibility of unpleasantness just beyond our field of vision. It was sold as something it wasn't, a simple-minded slasher movie, and it never found its right audience. "I'm really quite proud of Road Games," says Franklin. "I think the film works very well as what Hitchcock would have referred to as a `souffle.' He called North by Northwest a souffle. Road Games is full of air but I think it rises very nicely and I'm very happy with it."
Think of Rear Window on wheels, something Franklin points out to us. Pat Quid (Stacy Keach) drives a huge, 22-wheel long-haul refrigerator truck ("Just because I drive a truck doesn't make me a truck driver."). He's a smart guy with a big imagination...talks a lot, usually to himself...has a part-Dingo dog named Boswell as a companion. He speculates about the people he encounters on the road. He's just picked up a load of 30 butchered hog sides in Adelaide to be delivered to Perth. It's going to be a long, straight, lonely haul across the desolate Nullarbor Plain. And then he notices for a second time a green van that was parked at a motel where he stopped over night in Adelaide before loading the hogs. He saw the man earlier pick up a hitchhiker. The next morning Boswell intensely investigated a couple of overstuffed bags set out on the street for trash pickup.
For most of the movie Pat keeps encountering this green van. He picks up a hitchhiker himself, a young woman he nicknames "Hitch" (Jamie Lee Curtis). He winds up convincing himself that the driver of the green van is the serial killer people are talking about...a serial killer who likes to use a garrote to start things off and then a knife to make the final product more compact for disposal. When Hitch disappears at a road stop where the green van was parked, Pat's not sure what to do. It all comes together in a screeching, scraping climax when Pat guns his huge truck late at night down the dark, ever narrowing streets of Perth in pursuit of the green van. He's almost sure Hitch is in that van, and may be alive. When the van finally stops, Pat and his truck are jammed tight. A man gets out of the van and walks toward Pat with a steel shovel in his hands. Pat can't get the doors of his cab open. He's just going to have to sit there. But maybe not.
Although Jamie Lee Curtis does a great job as Hitch, this is Keach's movie. Curtis is on camera perhaps a quarter of the time. Her character is smart, inquisitive and no weakling. She's a good match for Pat Quid's words, imagination and suspicions. But it's Keach who provides the narrative and the character that keeps us hooked. He gives us a likeable guy, no genius, and someone we could see getting so caught up in his own stories that he might make some really wrong assumptions. Richard Franklin, with Keach, have managed to give us an exciting, suspenseful and amusing story that, however unlikely, spends a lot of time in the cab of a long-haul truck driving through lonely territory.
Of course, it helps when Franklin gives us things to think about...such as why there were 30 hog sides when Quid left Adelaide and there were 32 when he got to Perth...and why two of the serial killer's bodies were never found...and just how sweet will be those pork chops that the house wives in Perth are buying to cook for their families.
It's time Road Games was discovered again. It's a first-rate souffle.
The DVD transfer looks fine. There is a pleasant on-camera interview about the making of the movie with Franklin and Keach and a commentary by Franklin.
Oldie but goody February 25, 2007
Chrissy K. McVay (North Carolina)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Keach plays Quid, a truck driver delivering pork to Perth, Australia. He beats the boredom of the road by looking at other cars and the people inside them and guessing their line of work, etc. He gets too accurate with his game when a serial killer picking up hitchhikers and leaving them in pieces crosses Quid's path. Keach's character is witty and has more personality than most portrayals of truck drivers. A young Jamie Lee Curtis teams up with Quid and together they try to find out if their guessing game about the strange man in the green van is fact or fiction. When Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis) gets too close to the killer she nearly becomes a victim herself. Great dialogue, humor and numerous quirky characters.
Chrissy K. McVay - Author
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