I saw the relatively high rating and decided to give this a shot. I was going in blind, but the fact that the film was labelled as a horror and made in the 80's gave me a rough idea of what was to be expected (meaning some amount of camp and a low degree of self-seriousness). I was dead wrong, I was pretty much floored by the opening sequence alone: the lonesome car driving through the desert just before nightfall as a menacing storm is brewing in the background reminded me of the big open landscape sequences in Badlands, only exponentially more sinister. I started to suspect at this point that I had stumbled upon something special, and as soon as Rutger Hauer appeared on screen my suspicions were confirmed. I believe that putting this film into words would be doing it a disservice but I'll try to spend a few sentences on it regardless. The atmosphere is distinctly tense and dreamlike from beginning to end. The logic of the film, although reminiscent of it, is clearly separated from that of the world that exists outside of it. I would generally dismiss this as a negative aspect, but in the context of this specific picture John Ryder's perverted brand of omnipotence bestows a metaphysical quality upon him which elevates the character from a campy slasher-trope type to the incarnation of some dark, higher intent. The film feels like a fevered hallucination, the aesthetics of which are impeccably suggestive: the textures are grimy, the interiors are gloomy, the characters' skins are stained and sweaty. As alluded to previously, the logic that the characters surrounding the protagonist seem to abide by is nightmarishly slanted, leaving you feeling a deep sense of dread at the thought of being stuck in a foreign land with no allies, no reasonable people willing to lend a helping hand. Topping it all off is the soundtrack, which I wouldn't know how to even describe: although clearly a product of its time, it seemed glaringly subversive in a multitude of aspects, menacing enough to nicely complement the on-screen mayhem yet occasionally inducing highly atypical emotional interpretations of some sequences and imagery. All of the film's elements seemed to harmoniously tie into the same core concept: somewhat familiar, yet deeply foreign. As the story was approaching its climactic culmination, I started to believe that what I was witnessing must had been the turmoiled crossing of a threshold, the hallucinatory internal journey of an agonising Jim Halsey trapped in a flaming wreck after a deadly, initial collision with the truck (in the beginning of the film, he barely avoids crashing into one). This may not be the case as intended by the filmmakers, and likely so, but I'll always stand in admiration of any artwork capable of summoning such wild and enticing convictions in me.
In closure, a lot of films have tried (and many still do) to earn the right to be defined as "Lynchian", to varying degrees of merit. I believe that this film not only fully deserve such a title, but that it also contributed to expand, in my personal view, what the term could come to entail if approached radically, differently, subversively. I would strongly recommend giving this one a chance.
In closure, a lot of films have tried (and many still do) to earn the right to be defined as "Lynchian", to varying degrees of merit. I believe that this film not only fully deserve such a title, but that it also contributed to expand, in my personal view, what the term could come to entail if approached radically, differently, subversively. I would strongly recommend giving this one a chance.