Rest Stop (2006)

Jaime Alexander
Joey Mendicino
Nick Orefice
Deanne Russo
Joseph Lawrence

Directed by John Shiban

Plot: The Hollywood dreams of two runaway lovers are suddenly transformed into living nightmares when a momentary pause at an abandoned roadside rest stop turns into a struggle for survival against a predator who sadism knows no boundaries in this tense nail-biter from X-Files writer and executive producer John Shiban. The west coast was a long way off, and when Jess and Nichole decided to stretch their legs at a deserted rest stop they could never have anticipated the terror that awaited them. Now Jess has disappeared, and a savage stranger with a penchant for cruel games has turned up in her place. This is no coincidence, however, and before the day is over Nichole will be forced to fight for her life against a murderous maniac whose creative use of power tools will have her screaming for mercy.

Review: As everyone probably knows by now, I love horror films. I’m not into the scary as much as the gory and disturbing. I knew nothing of this film, but the cover intrigued me. As I stood there reading it and trying decide if I was going to give it a chance, the Blockbuster guy spoke up and told me that it was good. This is normally something I ignore, since they are trying to make a sale, but this particular Blockbuster guy knows I review movies and usually tells me when it’s a waste of time to rent something, so I took the chance.

This movie was actually kind of cool. I enjoyed the movie as a whole, but there were parts that I am still on the fence about. There is really no character development or story explanation. Usually that is fine, but in this case I think it needed a little more explanation of the main villain. It didn’t hurt the film, but I think it would have added more to it. The performances were decent, nothing special, but still good. It’s somewhat slow starting, but moves to the meat of it pretty quickly. The second half of the movie is really good. It’s very gory and suspenseful. The ending is ok, but to me was a little bit of a let down, due to the lack of explanation. Again, it didn’t hurt the film, it was still good, I just think it would have improved it. I recommend this film to horror fans.


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