Road Games (1981) ***1/2

Road Games (1981) is Richard Franklin's version of Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), only set on a refrigerator truck. More of a thriller than a horror film (as it was sold), the film starts out incredibly strong—due in large part to the magnetically charismatic performance by lead Stacy Keach—but fizzles out by the end and concludes with a weak climax. 

Franklin doesn't quite know how to stage his action and tension or take advantage of the landscapes in a way that truly grabs the audience, the way fellow Aussie George Miller did in 1979's Mad Max (my review here) and especially in its sequel, released the same year as this film. RG shares those films' composer, Brian May, and the score here is good, but again nowhere near as good as the Max films. Jamie Lee Curtis is also not utilized nearly enough.

All that said, Keach soliloquizes Everett De Roche's dialogue most eloquently and there is a certain charm to a simple film like this, one that doesn't barrage the viewer with screen "noise." RG bombed at the box office—both in Australia and the US—but it landed Franklin the directing job for Psycho II (1983), which is actually better than it has any right to be.