RYDE-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: A serial killer disguises himself as a ride-share service rider to target his victims. 

One of the best things about technology is the convenience it provides. A touch of a finger brings the world closer to you. Download an app, and you can learn a new language for free, get reviews of restaurants you just need to try out, download your favorite tunes...the list is endless.

Anything and everything is possible nowadays. Even transport.

You no longer need to wait by the side of the road, waving your arms and hoping to catch a cabbie’s attention. Now all you need to do is download an app, sign up and press a button to call a cab. The license plate number and the driver’s photo pops up on your screen so that you can feel safe getting into a car with a complete stranger.

Everything is checked out for you- especially the driver’s background. No need to pay cash upfront either. Everything is done through an app.

With so much convenience and so many benefits included in this service, nothing can go wrong, right?

Ryde brings a new terror forward, something that you may not have thought could be possible. After all, how many of us have actually checked the driver’s face to see if he looks like the picture you were given? We usually only check the car license plate number.

RYDE Movie Plot 

Ryde is about a psychotic killer who disguises himself as a worker of different professions to lure his prey. At first, it looked like he was killing randomly, but his intentions become a little confusing as the movie proceeds. He appears to be targeting women who are either very bitchy, or seduce him.

Their provocative bitchy behavior is what sets him off and he uses violent ways to kill his victim, soaking them in their own blood. Luckily, we are saved from the goriness and the camera pans out when the killings happen.

As the night progresses, he finds himself running into a woman who seems to have an abusive boyfriend. Then he starts to purposely get closer. As she throngs from one party to another, the killer sets about picking up women and murdering them off, exempting only those women who appear good-natured or are too drunk to hit on him. All others, are taken away to secluded locations and finished off.

At the end of the night, he picks up Jasmine, the woman with the annoying boyfriend. At first, she doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, but when the serial killer makes a comment about her boyfriend, she turns her attention to the phone screen on the dashboard and realizes that her driver isn’t who he is supposed to be.

RYDE Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

She makes him stop the car under the pretext of feeling sick, but the killer soon understands that he has been identified. They struggle, hit each other and he ultimately manages to knock her out. But Jasmine is a fighter. She strangles him when he’s driving, causing him to crash.

When Jasmine wakes up, she finds that she’s pregnant and her boyfriend promises to make amends. She is taken to identify the corpse of the serial killer. Of course, that is not him.

In the cutscene, he’s seen disguising himself as a Ryde driver and picking up more women passengers.

The movie was frightening, in the sense that we tend to take technology for granted, not once realizing that there might be a loophole. We expect technology to do everything for us, even think for us.

Imagine if the other women too had checked their phones to make sure the right person was taking them around the city.

Instead, they were too preoccupied, too trusting of the small device in their hands. A smartphone can only be as smart as the person using them.

The only problem with the story was the cliched ending. It wasn’t a surprise to see the real driver lying in the morgue. The cut-scene of the killer luring his prey was also too obvious. We only get to see his eyes, but I hope he was injured in the crash. They could have shown he had been hurt or they could have shown him escaping the accident and taking the real driver’s body out of the trunk and replacing it with his own.

Instead, the story uses the same tired old trick. Nothing unique here, which is disappointing considering the rest of the movie wasn’t all too bad.

It’s an interesting watch if anything. And it will put the fear of obsession with technology in our minds.

Scare Scale: 3/5