The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
Roadgames
Mystery · Thriller · Horror · 1981
A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer in a van who lures young female hitchhiker victims on a desolate Australian highway.
Movie details
Roadgames
“The truck driver plays games. The hitchhiker plays games. And the killer is playing the deadliest game of all!”
1981 Mystery · Thriller · Horror 1h 41m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.5 / 10
Community rating
A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer in a van who lures young female hitchhiker victims on a desolate Australian highway.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Roadgames?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.
Circle
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In a massive, mysterious chamber, fifty strangers awaken to find themselves trapped with no memory of how they got there. Organized in an inward-facing circle and unable to move, they quickly learn that every two minutes, one of them must die…executed by a strange device in the center of the room.
Signs
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A family living on a farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields which suggests something more frightening to come.
Fear in the Night
Mystery · 1972
It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Peggy is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?
Outbreak
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A State Park Ranger and his wife, grappling with the disappearance of their teenage son, face a mysterious outbreak that threatens not only their relationship, but in the end, their grip on reality.
The Drowning Pool
Thriller · 1975
Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
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When five women take part in a corporate hiking retreat and only four come out on the other side, Federal Agents Aaron Falk and Carmen Cooper head deep into the Victorian mountain ranges to investigate in the hopes of finding their whistle-blowing informant, Alice Russell, alive.
The Cellar
Horror · 2022
When Keira Woods' daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of their new house in the country, she soon discovers there is an ancient and powerful entity controlling their home that she will have to face or risk losing her family's souls forever.
Kept Woman
Thriller · 2015
Jessica and her fiancé Evan have just moved from the city into their dream home on a quiet suburban street. Soon after, Jessica catches her seemingly friendly new neighbor, Simon, in a strange lie and can't let her suspicions rest. The danger escalates when Simon lures her inside his home and imprisons Jessica in his secret bunker, meticulously decorated in the idealized style of the 1950s.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Richard Franklin
Written by
Everett De Roche
Stacy Keach
Patrick 'Pat' Quid
Jamie Lee Curtis
Pamela 'Hitch' Rushworth
M
Marion Edward
Madeleine 'Frita' Day
Grant Page
Smith or Jones
T
Thaddeus Smith
Policeman 'Abbott'
S
Steve Millichamp
Policeman 'Costello'
Alan Hopgood
Lester
Court is in session
Put Roadgames on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.