Rest Stop

If only he hadn't bowed to cliché, Mr Shiban could have actually made a good film from this story. It was just different enough to keep you interested, so for the same amount of time, energy and money as was spent on this stinker, we might have had something good instead of eye-rolling.

Production-wise, it is as good as one could really expect from a hand-held camcorder, so he gets good marks there. It's really the script that's at fault, as the acting wasn't all that bad, either, considering what the actors had to work with.

I thought the days were long gone when we would see someone, finding a radio transceiver they desperately wish to operate, first turn every knob on the thing from end to end, bash it on top 6 or 7 times, and then expect it to work. This story is ruined by a continuous string of stupid moves by all the characters except the bad guy. It's as though we are thought to be too shallow to grasp all the plot devices, so they are all spoon-fed to us to make sure we get them.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't work on me. My attention ends up being occupied by the plot holes and over-dramatizations, not the story.

So, since I found this to be not so bad in the technical sense, I think Mr. Shiban should try again, only with a proper script next time; then he might give us something worth watching.

About a year ago, Gregg Dumont wrote a review pleading, "I beg you to take a pass" for Rest Stop, the first feature film from Raw Feed. Gregg ended up giving the film a 2.5 but really didn't state in the review anything that would lead you to understand why it got to the 50% mark. Gavin Schmitt, another featured contributor to the killerreviews site wrote a review for the same film giving it a 4 out of 5.

It was time for me to find out which of the two I most resembled in taste. Would I hate the film for its generalities and ridiculous situations that the lead character puts themselves in, or would I resemble more the optimist Schmitt who wrote about it being a "Great movie for those who love bad movies".

Rest Stop stars Jaimie Alexander as Nicole, an aspiring actress that leaves her family behind and runs off with her boyfriend Jesse on a road trip to Hollywood. Their terror begins when a mysterious pick-up truck runs them off the road. A confrontation between Jesse and the driver is avoided when the pick-up drives away before Jesse could open a can of road rage whoop ass.

Soon after, Jesse and Nicole stop at a Rest Stop for a bathroom break. While Nicole is using the facilities, Jesse and the car disappear, leaving Nicole stranded in the middle of nowhere.

It is here where the movie really falls off the rails for a few chapters (like the rest of them). We watch as Nicole talks to herself in an effort to figure out what has happened and what action she might take to better her situation. Her conversations with herself come across as lazy storytelling. I know the audience for these types of films might not have Master's degrees, but for Christsake! Nicole's first mistake is taking a ride in a RV with a family of misfits. It was as if director John Shiban attempted to cross elements of The Vanishing, Joy Ride and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre into his film rather than just developing his own story.

Nicole then finds herself back at the Rest Stop where she finds a naked and bloodied Tracy hiding in a supply closet. Tracy talks about how the man in the pick-up truck took her years ago and tortured her endlessly leaving her bloodied and deformed.

But then Tracy disappears, literally, and we are left trying to figure whether Nicole dreamt up the entire thing. Thing is, by this point, we don't give a crap. Then it just gets stupid.

When a police officer stops by, instead of ending it and getting everyone to safety, he puts himself in peril and eventually ends up being run over. Twice. Sorry, but he deserved to die.

By this point, we were only 51 minutes into the 85 minute Unrated running time, and I couldn't wait to get on with my day. The dying officer goes on and on and if I could have reached into the television and help his nose and mouth closed to smother him, I would have. And when Nicole gets her finger bit off, I thought she deserved that too.

Luckily, the killer provides Nicole with a video camera that shows him torturing her soon to be ex-boyfriend. A box cutter here, a cut-off of the tongue there, did provide the only thing worth watching outside of the one scene of brief nudity at the onset of the film.

But then when the cop asks Nicole to use the last of his bullets on him rather than saving them to protect herself, I completely lost it.

Mr. Dumont wrote how the production values of the film were above average. For that, I give the film credit. There was even a slow motion explosion scene that kind of caught me off guard (I also have no idea why or how a bathroom can explode, but no matter). But that's where the praise stops. Everyone in this film does exactly what they shouldn't, and for that I want to slap them. And just when Nicole has a chance to get away, she sits by a tree and we have to endure a flashback. Dear God! I didn't buy into the situation, the mood, the characters and certainly not the McGyver Nicole we get at the end of the film that has problems lighting a match. And the ending. WTF! This puts me more in line with Gregg Dumont's review. I was incredibly confused in a simple film and I still can't tell you if it was all a dream or if it really happened. What I do know is that it was crap.

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I do not write reviews here often but I can not stand by and let other people suffer through this movie without a least trying to warn them. This movie is horrible and it is not because "I do not know what the director was trying to convey" or "I am too stupid to understand the plot"; this movie is horrible because of poor direction, screen writing and acting. This is the "trifecta" of bad move making and the reason the film was direct to video. It tries to be something like "High Tension", "Hostel" and "TCSM" with the lifting of some of those ideas but it just does not work. I did not have high expectations or even medium ones going into the film but was still very disappointed. It had potential to be very good with a nice setting and good idea for a film but it was wasted.

*minor spoilage*

It's sad to see the current state of horror movies...so many of them are unimaginitive, formulaic scribbles built around graphic images of people being cruelly tortured to death. Once upon a time, films like BLOOD FEAST and BLOODSUCKING FREAKS were at least groundbreaking and shocking, but today this stuff is all just business as usual(a troubling thought, really, but save that rant for another time).

Enter REST STOP...an ambitious indie movie in the above-mentioned category, though not an especially GOOD one, wherein a young runaway and her lover meet their grisly fate at a filthy roadside toilet. Along the way, we are introduced to characters who appear and disappear mysteriously, lending this film a presumably supernatural slant(the only element which distinguishes it slightly from most other titles of its particular feather)

Amidst the ho-hummery of "fight for your life" action, be ready for an atrocity exhibition of tongue-cutting, flesh-drilling, bone-crunching torture...graphic scenes served up as "highlights" in films of this type. Admittedly, they are fairly potent. Sadly, REST STOP succeeds only in the gross-out department(though the performance of the leading lady, while strained at points, is distressingly believable despite her character being poorly written)

The worst part of it all is the vague, frustratingly non-resolute finale, and any bit of intrigue this film manages to generate becomes nullified by it. I generally have no problem with oblique endings in movies, but when so many key queries are met head-on with a shrug, the overall feeling one gets is that there was never a solidly devised basis to build upon in the first place.

A mean-spirited amateur undertaking at best, recommended only to preponderant gorehounds who toss off with back-issues of FANGORIA. 3.5/10

As some reviewers have said, the supernatural (ghost) elements could explain what some have called the "plot holes" in the story line and/or character motivation. Another possibility is that the events as we see them are part of a nightmare world or dream imagery in which actual events are "relived" in a surreal, disjointed sequence in which memories can be magnified and distorted. Both types of experience are not a precise replay of reality, though they have a basis in a reality. Another possibility is that the film-makers' goal is a depiction of their conception of what Purgatory could be like, in which the "sinner" relives portions of his/her life as an end to eventual redemption; a part of that redemption could include a reaching out (into the real world) in an effort to protect others from a similar fate by reaching out (or "across" time and space)to make contact with living people -- some of whom (as in the movie) can "see" and react, while others cannot.

How well this works in the eyes of an audience is another matter, of course. As with all movies, a willing suspension of disbelief is necessary for the degree of enjoyment one derives, and that is effected by (though not always satisfactorily controlled by)the acting, direction, special effects, etc. In the case of REST STOP (I haven't seen the sequel), the success of such an intention is for me only about 50/50, though I appreciate the multiple levels of possible meaning. Certainly it is not "the worst" movie of all time -- unless one has seen only one movie.