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DIRECTED BY: Mick Garris

FEATURING: Christopher Lloyd, Matt Frewer, Raphael Sbarge, Missy Crider

PLOT: The mysterious Aaron Quicksilver shares two tales of ill-fated individuals: a traveling salesman who encounters a suspicious set of novelty clattering teeth, and a plastic surgeon who finds that his hands have developed minds of their own.

COMMENTS: Horror on television is a tricky proposition. The genre frequently relies upon visceral shock and gore, elements too unseemly for broadcast, which is why the most successful series either emphasize psychological terror or abscond to cable where the standards are looser. But Bless Mick Garris for continuing to try. He is responsible for five Stephen King TV adaptations, including takes on classics The Stand and The Shining. Plu,s he’s well-versed in the televised horror anthology, with credits in “Tales from the Crypt,” “Freddy’s Nightmares,” and “Masters of Horror.” If anyone is going to make Quicksilver Highway work, it’s Garris.

He doesn’t, though. That’s not necessarily his fault, of course. The film is a busted pilot, with two unrelated episodes inelegantly slammed together. They both traffic in body horror, a genre that is never going to get a fair hearing on network TV. The small-screen budget is also a limitation, with simplistic special effects (including some terrible CGI) and overly broad acting. The stories are also heavily padded to fill out 45 minutes apiece, with long diversions into pointless philosophical debates and weak character monologues arriving right at the moment when the story really needs to be gaining steam. Mostly, though, the finger needs to be pointed at the material, which is best described as “better on paper.” Neither of these are horror short story classics from genre masters King and Clive Barker, but one can see how they managed to create a sense of unease though their unlikely subjects. But visualizing them, without the reader’s imagination to hide behind, reveals them as low-stakes and low-impact. 

The King story, “Chattering Teeth,” relies upon a familiar trope from the author, an innocent-looking object that carries with it bad juju and sinister intent. A classic monkey’s-paw scenario. In this case, the object is an oversized set of windup walking choppers, which the protagonist somehow imagines is going to be the perfect gift to appease his disappointed son. When the novelty mandibles attack a nasty hitchhiker, it’s impossible to see it as anything other than an actor forced to pretend-wrestle with a goofy prop. The teeth need to have a “creepy doll” vibe in order to work, and they just don’t.

The second tale, Barker’s “The Body Politic,” finds greater success by indulging in sublime silliness. Here’s a villain we can get behind: human hands which have somehow become imbued with the spirit of Che Guevara, calling for liberation from the oppression of being attached to Matt Frewer. They are ridiculous little gremlins, speaking to each other with Smurf-like voices and hyperactively gesturing at each other while plotting their revolution. They’re risible, but they benefit from a couple solid jump-scares and the full commitment of Frewer, who actually does some pretty nifty acting with opportunities for his face and his hands to play conflicting emotions. Once again, though, what probably reads as spectacularly macabre on the page becomes ludicrous on screen, as when Frewer outwits a whole platoon of severed hands by leading them off the roof of a building, resulting in the jaw-dropping sight of dozens of hands flinging themselves into oblivion. I am sure you’re supposed to laugh in shock. The laughter you get is different.

The connective tissue is our good Mr. Quicksilver, a sort of wandering troubadour of the grotesque. He repeatedly insists that his tales have no moral, but contempt for his audience positively oozes out of him. Lloyd is a curious choice for a narrator. Already odd with his spiky red hair, black peasant’s blouse and knee-high leather boots, looking for all the world like Johnny Rotten in a witches’ coven, he’s an actor we often recognize for his manic interior that threatens to break into the open. This puts him at odds with the cool detachment he tries to project, the hint of judgment from on high that we associate with Rod Serling in “The Twilight Zone,” Vic Perrin in “The Outer Limits,” or even David Duchovny in “Red Shoe Diaries.” It’s telling that, the moment he gets someone to join him in his trailer for a pleasant meal, he immediately jumps into an indictment of America as a land of lies and darkness. (He’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s hardly an icebreaker.) It’s hard to understand why someone would sit through his spiel. Intriguingly, one can easily imagine Frewer in the role in a slightly lower-budget version.

Quicksilver Highway isn’t bad, just extremely inessential, an empty-calorie snack that’s not a career highlight for any of its participants. If you’re driving out west and happen to pass by a strange-looking man in a Rolls-Royce towing an Airstream trailer, don’t stop for one of his stories. Not because of the horrible fate that awaits you. But because there are so many better things to do.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s odd, it meanders, it has unusual moralist tales, and it’s totally goofy. It’s not great, but it has a charm that’s hard to resist.” – Jolie Bergman, Horror Habit

(This movie was nominated for review by Dave Pistol. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

Quicksilver Highway [DVD]

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