Lost After Dark

The director is competent, the actors are mostly doing a fair enough job and the gore effects are probably what you would expect from a low-budget slasher referencing the 80s. But the script is bad enough to outweigh the good, significantly.

It seems that people are nowadays so used to movies being constructed by formula, retelling the same old crap, over and over, that they immediately consider a movie "smart" when it does something a little different from the others. Yes, the movie does have a few minor surprises. But other than that, most of the tiring clichés and overused tropes are still there. None of the "victims" do anything intelligent or reasonable. The killer could be no more generic, the story no less interesting.

There are a few well shot and creepy visuals, but those were, unfortunately, not the focus of the movie and thus were neglected in favor of uninspired slasher action.

Pros: Robert Patrick is getting work

Cons: unoriginal, so dark you can't see most of it, generic, can't decide if it's meta, trying to be 80s with zero charm, cannot care about the characters, generic stereotypes, music is bad.

It was an okay cheap horror film. Nothing great and nothing new to see. I won't spoil it, but the first death was shocking; I didn't expect that. The kills were okay. Even though Toby wasn't the main character, I was surprised he turned out to be so likable. They don't usually make a character the audience will care about in these types of movies.\ Robert Patrick's character was silly. I don't know if he was hurting for money, or he just wanted to be in a horror film.

The bad guy was stupid. You've seen his sort of "can't die bad guy" in multiple cheap horror films.

I gave this a 4-star rating. If you must watch all the slasher films out there, give this a viewing, but don't expect much. However, there are horror films that are far worse than this.

I came across this recently and being a massive fan of slashers that I am, this intrigued me given it's throwback feel, okay a lot of these have come out over the last decade or so, and a lot of them don't work, like looking way too glossy and over produced to have that classic era feel, meaning very few pull it off successfully, as everything else like plot, effects and cast all fall short. But in this case, I am quite happy to say does have that vintage feel pulled off to perfection, and does have decent gore effects and a great cast.

But what stops this from being a classic piece is that the movie itself does kinda fall apart in some places and can't help but feel that there's something missing. For now I am gonna talk about the positives, firstly the production design, the sets and the 80's fashion is top notch and the cinematography is simply stunning, the retro look and feel really does transport you to that time and era. The creepy farmhouse was a brilliant setting and does have an unsettling tone to it, as does the killers who while not an iconic slasher villain; he does have a creepy presence.

Also the cast of teens really make this work and always love the stereotype roles in these movies, but in this case they are not the usual bland run of the mill forgettable teens, they were very decent. Kendra Leigh Timmins who plays Adrienne the virginal good girl was really good and likable in her role and made me really feel when events took a total unexpected turn. Robert Patrick as the principal was totally silly and over the top, but fun. Jesse Carnacho as the fat kid Tobe was really likable and showed depth to his role. Elise Gatien, who plays the best friend role Jamie, would be a disposable character in any other type of film, but here she really steps it up and becomes a really good believable forefront character. Justin Kelly who plays the kind hearted jock Sean was really decent and should have lasted longer, Stephen James as the black kid was just okay, didn't really shine amongst the rest. Also Alexander Calvert was fun as the jerk bad boy character. Then finally Mark Wiede did good as the killer Joad, while not as memorable as other slasher villains, he was menacing enough.

Now for the lesser qualities, firstly despite a good set up, I just didn't feel a sense of dread or tension throughout the movie, while it was mostly predictable, apart from the first of the teens to die, which did totally take me by surprise, but apart from that it just became a bit slow paced and lagged in some parts. For a start the situation that these teens were in, they could have easily just left the area at any given time, but instead stayed around, just didn't feel realistic to me, if they were somehow trapped at the farmhouse, then the tension could have been cranked up a bit for me.

All in all yes "Lost After Dark" is a very decent throwback retro slasher that should definitely be looked at, but just needs a bit of fine tuning, and adds in some chills and tension.

A throwback slasher movie that is reminiscent of the 70s but especially the 80s. Grindhouse is sort of back, because of people who loved the movies back then, bringing them back to life (if you'll excuse the pun). With all the little things and flaws that made those movies ... what they are. Like bad lightning or missing reels (an inside joke sort of, though might be confusing for some who never had that experience with a movie before) and things like that.

The special (blood) effects are pretty decent for a low budget movie, the characters as shallow as you'd expect (also very bad choices, but that's to be expected to). You can have fun with this, if you feel nostalgic or if you're generally a fan of slasher movies