Quicksilver Highway (1997)

Please don't spend money on this.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Writer / co-producer / director Mick Garris keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek with this goofy pair of stories, which are told by kooky, mysterious character Aaron Quicksilver (Christopher Lloyd) to people he meets during his travels. Quicksilver, who's quite a sight to behold - Lloyd is decked out in red wig, dog collar, and man-in-black wardrobe - is both a collector of antiquities and tales, and is obsessed with exploring America's dark underbelly.First, he encounters new bride Olivia (Melissa Lahlitah Crider), whose husband Kerry (Raphael Sbarge) has gone off to get help after their car has broken down in the desert. To pass the time, he tells her the story of Bill Hogan (Sbarge again), who encountered a greasy psycho hitchhiker (Silas Weir Mitchell), and how Bill is saved by an extremely unlikely object, a novelty item of a set of chattery teeth. Based on Stephen King's story "Chattery Teeth", this segment features a cast also including Veronica Cartwright ("Alien") and has good desolate desert atmosphere. This is, in the end, one of those things that you can't possibly take seriously. It benefits from the sturdy acting of its cast.Then we move on to an adaptation of Clive Barker's "The Body Politic", which is definitely the more interesting of the two stories - its main conceit is a good one - but also ends up going in a blatantly comedic direction. Quicksilver regales pickpocket Charlie (Matt Frewer) with the story, about plastic surgeon Charles George (another role for Frewer) whose hands kick-start a local revolution of human hands, which want to leave the "tyranny of the body" and secure their freedom. Frewer really does a good job in this segment and helps you to buy into his characters' situation. Special effects are variable, but it's undeniably a hood to see so many severed hands in one place (Christopher Hart, who'd played Thing in the "Addams Family" feature films, performs the same sort of duties here).Garris works with a great bunch of actors here, people who are always a treat to watch, with the inimitable Lloyd having a high old time as our merry storyteller. Popping up in supporting roles and bits are Garris's lovely wife Cynthia, Bill Nunn as a psychiatrist, Bill Bolender, and sexy Amelia Heinle, with Garris and Barker themselves and John Landis doing the cameo thing. This is overall fairly lightweight stuff that's not too memorable in the end, but it *is* reasonably fun for the duration.Six out of 10.

The movie itself is not a great movie but not a bad one either. There are two stories tied together but is shown in different orders. The Body Politic and Chattering Teeth. I've seen this movie about a couple months ago on the weekends, on regular TV that is, and it was shown The Body Politic first. I buy the DVD and then it is Chattering Teeth shown first. Not that I'm complaining, some how the way it comes together in any different order makes it seem like the original. It all plays out evenly throughout the entire 90 minutes. Christopher Lloyd portrays Aaron Quicksilver as the traveling showman, and gives a chilling and spooky Gothic performance, not to mention wardrobe. A must-see movie for the Christopher Lloyd fan indeed, this is not your average quirky Uncle Fester character. Also performances by Matt Frewer who brilliantly plays two characters. One a memorable surgeon who cant seem to control his hands, a body part that turn against him and form a mind of their own. Couldn't have been played by a better actor. Finally the Chattering Teeth story is less chilling than the previous story mentioned, but in all still fun to watch. We don't realize in the beginning of the story how useful a pair of metal made choppers can be to a traveling salesman who picks up a hitch hiker along his journey. Raphael Sabarge gives a believable performance in this worst case scenario story of the classic psychotic hitch hiker, a truly psychotic and aggressive performance played by Silas Weir Mitchell. Not a must-see, but movie to get to know because after all, it is a Stephen King/ Clive Barker team project. Don't know whether to be scared or laugh out loud. My favorite Christopher Lloyd quote of the movie "Does every story have to have a moral or a point?"

At the time of this writing I'm a bit confused because the version I saw gave the "hand" story first followed by the "teeth" story, but comments here and on Amazon say the movie presents the two stories the other way around. And it should be noted that I haven't read the original stories; I judge the movie as a stand-alone form of entertainment.So, imagine what would happen if your hands stopped responding to commands from your brain and began doing whatever *they* wanted to do. And what if your hands plotted a revolution requiring an army of hands from other people. If you happened to see the modern "Addams Family" remake then you can extrapolate: picture a bunch of "Thing" hands running around free. I thought the army, and how they got that way, were very funny. OK, there is a rather serious horror story going on in the background, and Matt Frewer does some excellent hand-acting.As for the second story, well, I can't say much without giving too much away. But I was blown away by my favorite character, the wind-up teeth. I have a small collection of similar wind-ups, similar in that they walk or play instruments, but I never saw anything like these teeth. I felt totally torn between the seriousness of a hitchhiker-horror story and the humor of a wind-up character. Enjoy, just for fun.

Stephen King may be the man behind Shawshank Redemption, Dolores Clairborne and the Green Mile. But he was also the man behind Thinner, Children of the Corn and one of the worst episodes of the X-Files ever. Clive Barker (you could say he is King's English counterpart) was the writer behind Hellraiser, Lord of Illusions. But he was also the man behind the novel Coldheart Canyon. Both writers have talent. But they have pitfalls too; we are all human.And Quicksilver Highway isn't exactly their best.Quicksilver Highway seems like a movie made out of two mediocre stories that came out of the minds of two great writers. Perhaps they were among their worst stories. If that was the case, they shouldn't have made it to television. The first one, the Clattering Teeth, isn't so bad. But it is unoriginal and dull. So dull you just want it to end. But it goes on and on. Eventually it becomes tiresome; since this movie was made for TV, you may find yourself going to the kitchen to look inside the refrigerator before it ends and the other one begins. The second story, the one written by Clive Barker, seems more like the work of Stephen King. Here we have a hand that gets life of its own and turn against its owner. Soon other hands join a revolution. The story could have consumed thirty minutes of your life. But it didn't stop when it should have. Just like the first story, it went on and on. Maybe you can forget about the hands walking around on their own and return to the kitchen. This film may help you gain weight but gets short when it comes to entertaining us. Quicksilver Highway only has two stories. Not five or three like Creepshow I and II. After you watch this film, you feel like you have escaped out of a neverending nightmare. It is obvious that they wanted to stretch the stories long enough to make a film and not another episode of the Twilight Zone.Perhaps it is a good idea to avoid this one at all cost.