10 Underappreciated 80s Thrillers You Must Watch

Road Games is a fantastic Ozploitation thriller starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis and is terrifically directed by Richard Franklin. Keach plays Pat Quid, a truck driver in Australia who spends his time observing those around him on the road and strikes us immediately as a man who does not miss details.

When he spots a man driving a green van who takes a hitchhiker to a motel he takes particular note of this. When the news reports a killer on the loose he puts it all together and an amazing game of cat-and-mouse ensues culminating in a great ending.

The similarities to Hitchcock and particularly Rear Window are numerous and deliberate with Franklin paying homage is several ways, including Quid nicknaming Jamie Lee Curtis’s character Hitch. Keach is brilliant as Quid and portrays an amazing depth of character as the poetic truck driver who is not a truck driver.

The tension that Franklin manages to ramp up in a number of scenes is palpable and as the film draws to its conclusion you can almost feel the oppressive environment of the outback. It was a real standout of Australian cinema, which opened up the lifetime opportunity for Franklin to really pay respect to Hitchcock in Psycho 2.