Reviews: Quicksilver Highway (1997) Movie Review
- Related: [ Movie Details for Quicksilver Highway ]
Subgenres: Creatures, Desolate
Our review of Quicksilver Highway (1997) dives into the story, the scares, and whether it truly delivers the horror fans crave.
Quicksilver Highway (1997) is a 1h 30-min American horror, thriller movie that is based on Clive Barker‘s short story "The Body Politic" and "Chattery Teeth” by Stephen King. The film was shot in several locations in California, USA including Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica; Lancaster; Downtown, Los Angeles; Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles; Beverly Hills and Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. Director Mick Garris (Hocus Pocus (1993), The Fly II (1989), Masters of Horror (2005-2007), Critters 2 (1988)) did a poor job adapting the two short stories. Quicksilver Highway is two one hour stories where the first one titled; Chattery Teeth is about a man picking up a hitchhiker, and the second story titled The Body Politic is about hands that fight/rebel against the body.
The wraparound story centers around creepy Aaron Quicksilver (Christopher Lloyd - Back to the Future (1985), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)) who is a traveling showman telling two horror tales. Aaron tells different people that he meets along the way horror stories. Aaron met a newly married couple that was hitchhiking and told his first story “Chattery Teeth” to them. Chattery Teeth is about a man who picks up a hitchhiker and regrets it all too soon but was saved by a wind-up teeth toy from the hitchhiker. Aaron then told his second story titled "The Body Politic" to a pickpocketer. The second story is about a man’s hands rebelling against him.
I must admit that both segments/short stories are a little interesting, but they were not done/filmed/shot right. Chattery Teeth was incredibly creative, and The Body Politic was a cliche to things we have seen numerous times in horror movies.
Many of you might be wondering why I gave this film such a low score when two of the most popular modern horror authors wrote the stories - well watch the movie and get back to me. Mick Garris is known for doing wonders with small budgets where most of his work looks like it was made for TV. Quicksilver Highway is better than most horror anthology movies, but that does mean that it is a good watch because it fell short in many areas with an unappealing ambiance, odd humor, cheap feeling score, and unscary scenes.
Similar films like Quicksilver Highway can be found in horror anthologies sub-genre(s), check them out for more movies like Quicksilver Highway.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- Quicksilver Highway Rating Scores
- Our Score: 4/10
- Overall Score: 4.59/10
- IMDB: 4.9/10
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