ROUTE 666 (2001)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

ROUTE 666 is a decent little psychodrama about a crimefighter resolving his issues with a criminal daddy in the dry bowels of the American Southwest. Oh, and it's got zombie ghosts too.

By the whims of fate, federal marshal Jack La Roca (Lou Diamond Phillips) is assigned, along with other marshals, to track down a Witsec fugitive in the Southwestern desert. Jack, his partner Steph (Lori Petty), annoying putz P.T. (Dale Midkiff), and some redshirts track down "Rabbit" Smith (Steven Williams), who's supposed to testify against the mob the next day. Trouble is, mob hitmen show up to get in the way. After some bloody gun-battles, the marshals try to find the quickest route to their destination. The less than trustworthy Rabbit mentions a road, Route 666, which was condemned and closed due to a controversial incident about a slain prison work crew there.

 

As soon as the contingent begins traveling the road, Jack experiences weird visions, in which he beholds flashes about what happened to the work crew. The discovery of the prisoners' gravesite discloses an unpleasant truth: one of the slain convicts was Jack's bank-robber father. 

Though the marshals have lost the hitmen, a new menace appears: the ghosts of the convicts, all stone-faced zombies carrying the tools they bore when they died building the road. The ghost-zombies are invulmerable to human fists and to bullets, though they have one limitation: they can only manifest on the concrete road, or through other concrete media. When the marshals lose their cars, they're forced to play a deadly cat-and-mouse game. But can Jack get through to one of the cats, the one who sired him?

Jack is definitely the focal point here, and he's even drawn as a savior destined to end the curse upon Route 666, as is made clear when Jack has a different kind of vision, and communes with an Indian seer who proffers some general advice. Lori Petty gives good support to Phillips' dour, perpetually-wound-up fed, but although Dale Midkiff does a creditable job with his A-hole character, he adds nothing to the story, which would have benefited by more emphasis on Jack's psychology: his motivation for becoming a cop in reaction to his old man's history.

Still, it's a good one-shot B-film, and only one of two features, along with the 1988 SCARECROWS, essayed by director/co-writer William Wesley.