Movies
Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (V)
“Joy Ride 2 lucks out by coming on the heels of the similar (but utterly terrible) Rest Stop 2. It’s not particularly good, but considering how terrible its DTV brethren are lately, being merely OK is actually enough to warrant a pass from me.”
I didn’t care much for the original movie, so I wasn’t really excited about Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead. That said, it’s a mechanical movie without a single new thing to offer the genre, but like your 1000th McDonald’s hamburger, in the right mood it might just do the trick.
This one at least doesn’t bother with the ‘funny’ hijinks that we had to endure in the original (mainly courtesy of Steve Zahn, a man who is only amusing in VERY small doses). In fact they are intent on getting things moving ASAP this time, and thus they have the least original setup in breakdown history. Literally, the requisite dumb character (Nik, played by Kyle Schmid) says “Let’s take this shortcut!!” and within seconds the car breaks down. Honestly, it seems to occur so quickly that it’s a wonder they don’t just turn around and walk back to the turnoff, but another character claims it’s been a couple hours (clever use of exposition to hide confusing scene transitions!). One thing I loved about Leatherface: TCM III was that the ‘shortcut’ is offered by a bad guy posing as a good guy. When the crazy gas station clerk allegedly kills him, the heroes see that the other guy was really trying to help, and thus taking his shortcut suddenly seems like a good idea. It’s not exactly Oscar caliber, but it’s at least reasonably clever, and makes the characters feel a bit more intelligent than many of their breakdown movie peers. But Joy Ride 2 screenwriters James Robert Johnston and Bennett Yellin don’t even try; we know they will break down anyway, might as well get right to it.
And from then on it’s fairly well done, more or less. Rusty Nail does the same sort of shit, tricking our heroes (among them Nicki Aycox) and forcing them to do terrible things, but it’s enjoyable. It all comes down to a torture sequence in which the two male heroes are playing a life or death game of Craps, in which certain dice rolls translate into a different torture mode (i.e. a seven means you get a crowbar to your kneecap). Luckily, it ends with the death of the film’s most annoying character, a poseur who one of the girls met on Myspace. It’s kind of funny that FOX would produce a film in which a Myspace (which is owned by FOX) user is depicted as a whiny loser with fake tattoos and no backbone. Granted, it’s realistic, but still rather surprising.
Myspace is just one of many prominent websites to get namedropped in the film (Google, Youtube…). Perhaps it’s the screenwriters’ attempts to make their film more identifiable to their target audience, but if so, they should realize that most people, even Myspace users, aren’t stupid enough to take random shortcuts with an old car owned by someone who doesn’t bother putting oil into it. Remember: if it really were a shortcut, it would just be “the way”. How about, just for once, making horror movie characters easy to identify with by having them act like actual human beings?
This one is directed by Louis Morneau, who also made the unnecessary sequel Hitcher II. It’s a very similar film, but he fares better here, since the script actually has some decent ideas (killing off a traditionally “safe” character for starters) and delivers about what you’d expect out of a direct to video sequel, which Hitcher II couldn’t even manage.
Joy Ride 2 lucks out by coming on the heels of the similar (but utterly terrible) Rest Stop 2. It’s not particularly good, but considering how terrible its DTV brethren are lately, being merely OK is actually enough to warrant a pass from me.
Visit Horror Movie A Day for a longer review.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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