Rest Stop: Don't Look Back

I'm in a minority here, but I really enjoyed the movie.

The gore scenes were pretty good, a few good jump-scares, and just creepy and fun scenes make it a fun movie to watch. Very weird, hard to understand and a lot of problems with it, but it's better than the first, and at least worth a rent.

One of my main problems is the characters were annoying, and I often kept wanting to smack Marilyn across the face.

But, considering a lot of the straight-to-DVD crap that gets put out, this was an okay film that I actually enjoyed, maybe a little more than I should have...

The corporal Tom Hilts (Richard Tillman) returns from overseas to his hometown Argyle, Texas, for a ten days leave with the intention to seek our his brother Jess (Joey Mendicino), who disappeared one year ago while heading to California with his girl-friend Nicole (Julie Mond). He drives his truck with his girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) and followed by his friend Jared (Graham Norris) in his old car to California trying to track his brother. While in the old highway California, Jared needs to stop his car in an old rest stop to go to the toilet and is attacked by the driver of a yellow truck. Meanwhile Tom and Marilyn wait for him in the next rest stop where Tom is also attacked and kidnapped by the driver of the yellow truck. Marilyn sees the ghost of Nicole in the restroom and realizes that they are facing supernatural evil forces.

"Rest Room" had a good premise but the writer did not know how to end the story. However "Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" is a disappointing mess, with a non-likable lead characters – Tom, Jared and Marilyn – and an invincible sadistic ghost. The greatest "attraction" of this flick is the sick tortures inflicted by the driver to his victims, removing eyes and drilling knees and legs, with lots of gore and pain. But the plot itself is very weak and worse than in the original movie. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Rota Mortal: Não Olhe Para Trás" ("Mortal Route: Don't Look Back")

(2008) Rest Stop: Don't Look Back HORROR

Somewhat a continuation of what happened on the first movie, this time has young war veteran, Tom Hilts (Richard Tillman) along with 2 of his other friends- his girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) and Jared (Graham Norris) going on a search rant to find his brother, labelled who was missing from the first movie. They do this by retracing back to a lonely deserted highway called "Rest Stop", unbeknownst that it's entirely new dimension. Crossing their paths is a psychotic christian family in an RV and a deranged pick up driver. The movie has an interesting premise, except that I did not care too much for the ending.

The plot: Searching for his missing brother, a soldier runs into the killer ghost from Rest Stop, with predictable results for him and his friends.

Rest Stop 2 follows many of the conventions of the first movie, but manages to excise some of the pointless filler, replacing it with extended scenes of gory torture. Also, the origin of the ghostly killer is revealed, along with his connection to the creepy religious family. If you were dying to know these things, then I can understand why you'd want to see Rest Stop 2, but there really isn't much reason to subject yourself to this movie, when you can just read the synopsis on Wikipedia or the IMDb.

One of the saving graces of the original Rest Stop was its atmosphere and judicial use of gore. Unfortunately, the parts without gore tended to be a bit boring. In Rest Stop 2, the gore is pretty much its sole reason for being. As a result, I would recommend this movie only to fans of Rest Stop, gorehounds, and torture porn enthusiasts. Most other people will probably be either bored stupid or too grossed out. It's no masterpiece, but the gore effects are pretty good, for a low budget, direct-to-video sequel. Honestly, I'm a bit tired of horror movies that are nothing but young adults being tortured to death slowly, but I've seen worse ones than this. Some of the scenes were twisted enough to be memorable, but the movie itself really isn't.

First saw this on a dvd which i own in 2008. Revisited it today. This film managed to explain about the happenings from the first part but ruined itself. Both the parts had unnecessary torture scenes. Now what kinda ghost tortures people n communicates with a gas station attendant n asks one person to torture another. The story takes place one year after Jesse and Nicole disappeared in the first part. Jesse's brother returns from Iraq n decides to go looking for his brother with his girlfriend and one of his friend.

Once they get to California, the trio asks direction from a gas station attendant who was never there in the first part. I don't kno how the attendant gets the horseriding badge that belonged to Nicole from the first part. Generous with 5 cos of the desert settings n the initial ten mins explanation.