Compiled as a feature for home video, QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY is two episodes of a failed horror anthology TV series featuring Christopher Lloyd as a spooky storyteller.
In the first segment, young bride Olivia (Missy Crider) is stranded in the desert as her husband Kerry (Raphael Sbarge) goes for help. She meets traveling carney Aaron Quicksilver (Christopher Lloyd). He tells her a story about a traveling salesman Bill Hogan (also played by Sbarge) who foolishly tries to drive through a desert sandstorm. At a truck stop, he picks up a birthday present for his son, an oversized pair of chattering teeth with legs. He also picks up a hitchhiker (Silas Weir Mitchell), who tries to rob him. Bill is saved by the teeth, which kill the hitcher and drag his body off into the desert. After the story, Olivia hears the returned Kerry being struck and killed by a passing motorist, and steps outside to see his body being dragged away by the teeth.
While running a sideshow in a carnival, Quicksilver meets plastic surgeon Charlie George (Matt Frewer), who is the star of the story he hears: Taking his hands for granted, Charlie notices them when they start acting oddly, trying to turn the wheel of his car into oncoming traffic. As he sleeps, the hands talk to each other, plotting to break free of Charlie's body. The next evening, as he sleeps, they strangle his wife before he can stop them. Charlie's hands pull him to his kitchen, where one grabs a meat cleaver and severs the other. Charlie is taken to a hospital and his liberated hand follows, inciting other hands to "join the revolution." Pretending to speak for his remaining hand, Charlie leads the swarm of hands to the roof and orders them to follow him as he jumps to his death. As he leaves Quicksilver's sideshow, Dr. George is compelled to pinch a policeman.
It's almost a shame QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY didn't get picked up as a series, if more of it would have been as silly as what's here. It's hard to tell if the original stories by Stephen King and Clive Barker (who appears in a cameo) were meant to be taken seriously, or if adapter Mick Garris intended to add a little humor. But the climactic sight of a swarm of detached hands leaping off a rooftop, screaming "Free!" in high-pitched voices, is sublimely ridiculous. (Given to exhorting "Join me and be free! Leave the tyranny of the body! The revolution is at hand!", the hands have some of the best monster dialogue since bloodthirsting plant Audrey Jr. in Roger Corman's 1960 LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.) On the other hand, there's no such redeeming moment in the Stephen King story, "Chattering Teeth." Otherwise, these are a pair of tired fright exercises which happily abandon sense or logic any time there's a chance to score another cheap shock. (Violence, adult situations.) leave a comment
