Take the Bus, Take the Bus, For God's Sake, Take the Bus

 

How to get me to watch your low budget horror movie, a play in three acts

Act I: Get dropped on Peacock close to the Olympics, when some cheapskates finally splurge on the ad-free premium option

Act II: Give yourself the perfect dumb-pun title

Act III: Clock in at just 72 minutes

I am, and will always be, a simpleton at heart.

Quick Plot: Tommy is a rideshare driver who picks up passenger Theresa, then sneaks into her home and does things so terrible that the police who show up at the crime scene have an audible vomit party. 

Nearby, newly divorced Jolene is dealing with a handsy boss and flat tire in the middle of an empty industrial area of Atlanta. Tommy comes to her rescue, even being so kind as to turn the driving app off for her return trip and save Jolene a few bucks. What a prince!

Well, more a homicidal lunatic, but maybe it just depends on your filter. 

Jolene quickly finds herself locked inside her business complex playing mouse to Tommy's lumbering ginger cat. She manages to call low budget cinema's stupidest police officers (and boy is that saying something) but all that seems to do is provide some bodies to trip over. 

Across town, the detectives finally get the idea to check their murder victim's cell phone for recent activity. Wait, no, that would make too much sense. It's apparently easier to have Theresa's mom describe the man who picked her daughter up to a sketch artist, then pass that around the precinct. The fates align when one of the cops happens to spot Tommy driving a popular influencer around during a livestream. 

Somehow these aren't even the dumbest police officers in this movie.

Written and directed by Eduardo Castrillo, Ride Scare's budget was, I'm guessing, a lot less than one rush hour trip during surge pricing. The audio is occasionally fuzzy and the actors, while enthusiastic, don't necessarily scream experienced. At least the production managed to score a pretty large empty office for most of its action!

Much like The Girl In Cabin 13, reviewing Ride Scare is a bit of a chore. If a studio invests millions into a lazy remake, it feels like my duty (and sometimes joy) to tap into my inner mean girl and make petty jokes. When you swap out the overfunded studio for what you guess to be a team of dedicated amateurs culling favors from friends to just make a gosh darn movie, it feels like bullying.

Ride Scare is not good. The stalking scenes lack tension, characters lack brains, and the story unfolds so clunkily that you wish it would pull over for an oil change. Worst of all, Ride Scare ends on a ridiculously nasty note that feels ripped out of the year 2008. Downbeat conclusions can certainly work, but when your movie has just about nothing going for it, the least you can do is not end so cruelly. 

High Points

THE TITLE IS RIDE SCARE! WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

Low Points

Well, a semi-decent movie would be nice

Lessons Learned

Jehovah's Witnesses are always in full effect

In Georgia, it's considered rude to close a door behind you when behind chased by a homicidal maniac

Hence, the leading cause of death in Georgia is being hacked to death by homicidal maniacs

Rent/Bury/Buy

You know what's a good horror movie about a violent and unhinged driver? Spree. Yes, Spree, oddly hated upon its release, is quite good. Granted, it doesn't have anywhere NEAR as good a title as RIDE SCARE, but, you know, it's also not the movie Ride Scare. If you're a low budget horror or rideshare driver-based completist, you can find this one on Peacock and watch during the time it takes to make a nice roast.