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REST STOP
(DEAD AHEAD)
(2006)
DIRECTOR:
John Shiban
STARRING:
Jaimie Alexander, Joey Mendicino & Joey fucking Lawrence (!?).
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Let me just lay it straight out here, I intend to be concentrating on the positives of Rest Stop (Dead Ahead). Man I shudder every time I have to write that sub-title, which is one of only a handful of slight downfalls that this film has IMO.
Anyway, Rest Stop is the first direct to dvd release from the Warner Home Video label, Raw Feed. I’ve personally become quite a fan of the label as they have other entertaining (remember – entertainment?) films such as Believers, Otis & Sublime. Let’s not forget the sequel to this very film, Rest Stop (Don’t Look Back) *shudders* which I’ve not read a single good review for but am quite honestly looking forward to.
As a first release from a direct to dvd label, I think Rest Stop offers amazing levels of quality, in acting, productions values and finally, presentation. It’s a good film to look at and I think it get’s an unfair deal by most reviewers. I don’t want to even imagine myself trying to pull off a film that looks and feels like this with the shoestring budget they would’ve had to work with. On top of that, as a direct to dvd label why would anybody press play on a film like Rest Stop expecting much more than an independent weirdo cheese fest horror film. I for one never watched horror for “mental enlightenment” so I was quite happy with what this film had to offer in every way.
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Nicole seems to be your average neighbourhood girl, perky, pretty but naturally packs a whopping fucking attitude, he he. Her boyfriend Jesse seems to be the typical asshole who could pick up a girl like this. He treats her like what appears to be shit, doesn’t care about anyone besides himself and wouldn’t you know it, he has the self-centred emotional nature to even be an actor. Well done Jesse, five stars. They’ve decided they’ve had enough of their hometown and want to travel to LA where Jesse is going to be a big star and Nicole, well she can just be his emotional punching bag bitch, I assume.
They head off on their way with Nicole already harping on about calling her parents as she doesn’t want them to worry. Jesse naturally puts her down over her selfless thoughts and then they smoke a joint and get comfy for the ride. At this point for people struggling to grasp the most unlikable nature of Nicole or Jesse, I suggest you do the same, light up a fat old joint, because Nicole in particular only grates further on your nerves. We’ll discuss that in detail later. |
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^^ "GET IN BITCH!", "Whatever you say, asshole - *giggle*" . |
Excellent – here we have the gratuitous yet gentle scene of sexual relations, close ups of stand-in’s nipples and ominous shots of the beat up truck driving killer watching them. After this the couple have a near accident with the truck driving killer who I will now refer to as KLZ-303 (his number plate). Jesse gets out and tries to confront the driver of the truck, but alas, KLZ-303 takes off. So Jesse & Nicole continue on their way and finally we get to the “rest stop” location of the film, which we pretty much never leave again.
Nicole needs to take a leak and Jesse only too obligingly (by an asshole’s standards) pulls over so she can relieve herself. Whilst taking said urination in the woman’s bathroom Nicole hears heavy footsteps entering. Being full of attitude she assumes heavy footsteps are those of a man and not of a heavy woman wearing clumpy boots (not an impossibility?) and shouts out telling the assumed man to leave. An altercation ensues where the unseen man tries to enter Nicole’s toilet cubicle and has a little sniff at the door hole of the cubicle, clearly a lover of piss or whatever else we lovely creatures deposit in such locations. At this point I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to get into the cubicle because he was homicidal or maybe he was just pissed off that he’d made a simple mistake, walked into the wrong toilet and wanted to punch Nicole in the face for insulting him over such a mistake, I guess that’s still a bit messed up of him anyway hehe.
The situation dies down, the man disappears and Nicole leaves the bathroom to go back to Jesse and get the hell out of there. But what’s this? Jesse is gone. Nicole assumes he is playing a prank on her and yells out such horror one-liners as “Jesse, you’re not scaring me”. There are some great shots of the rest stop in this moment of isolation and I have to say it’s an incredibly creepy environment. With the run down bathroom, the closed up Ranger’s shack and the ONE vehicle parked there, the pinnacle of an American traveller’s dreams, the Winnebago. Nicole tries to communicate with the Winnebago but there is no movement or reply from it, except for the mysterious flash of a camera of some type coming from the back room window. |
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Nicole spends a lot of time moping around at the Rest Stop, assuming (she does a lot of that) Jesse has left her for dead and once again, who wouldn’t blame her, he’s an egotistical self-centred asshole.
As night falls Nicole seeks shelter and so she breaks into the Ranger’s shack. Here she sets down looking for anything she can find and trying to use the radio. A trucker contacts her and he says he’ll call the state police for help. Now it’s time to relax. What’s this!? A bottle of Wild Turkey in the bottom drawer of the desk, might as well drink up then hey. She spends extended periods of time moping about, hence us seeing her sad makes us feel bad for her. Finally she exits back out to the rest stop. (PS. You will see the words “rest stop” in this review about as much as you see the sign “REST STOP” in the movie. Count that shit, I mean it.) |
The film's main setting - incredibly creepy and isolated ^^
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While taking yet another leak in the bathroom and adding to the graffiti on the cubicle walls which seems to be some type of “record” for all the victims of this rest stop, she hears a noise outside. Nicole ventures out again to see Jesse’s car parked sideways in the middle of the road, hmmm… nothing suspicious here, might jump in, sit on the blood soaked seat and start it with the keys that have been left in the ignition. At this point KLZ-303 rams the car in several attempts to kill Nicole, but she only just gets away. She confronts KLZ-303 yelling quips like “fuck you” and he retorts with only a recording of her radio conversation to the “trucker” who by now we have all quite obviously guessed was…. KLZ-303!! Nicole is now starting to believe she is quite fucked. The killer drives off happy knowing he has toyed with her for a while.
The Winnebago at this point starts up, Nicole flags them down and she gets a ride. The family in the Winnebago is fucking awesome, I’ll say that right now. We have two insanely Christian parents, cardboard cutout twin boys in their pretty little suits who never say a word and finally we have Scotty, their little retarded dwarf son with a serious overbite among other demented aspects to his appearance who also has a fetish for taking photos of what seems like anything and everything. The family ignore Nicole’s plights and rant about summer heat & Christianity in a morbidly odd fashion. Needless to say Nicole bails out of the Winnebago and wouldn’t you know it – they drove in circles the whole time because there she is back at the rest stop!
Back at the rest stop our heroine decides to go back to the toilet… again. Not much to do at these rest stops. Once there she discovers a women in what seems to be the janitor’s closet of the toilet. She’s all cut up and bleeding from the mouth. She appears to be a previous victim who describes being taken by KLZ-303 to a bus and being tortured by various drills and torture devices. This is a good chance for some nice neat gore shots and with what appears to be a let down at this point, some typical torture horror which we’ve all become accustomed to having shoved in our faces lately. But without explanation the woman is gone. Was she a ghost? Who knows – I think so? It’s never really explained, mostly left for us to assume. Assumptions, assumptions… they run rife through this whole film.
A state police officer Mike Deacon arrives on a bike at the rest stop and Nicole is only too relieved to see him. While she’s telling him what’s happened and the killers details, the killer himself appears in his truck. Officer Deacon stops him for questioning and lets him on his way, believing the killer’s lame excuse, only to be run down by the killer on his departure. Officer Deacon is paralysed from being hit and his legs are crushed by the killer’s truck in the process of Nicole trying to pull him off the road.
They retreat to the toilet… again. What follows is IMO some moving scenes with a terrific performance by none other than Joey Lawrence playing Officer Deacon! I mean I was never a fan of Joey (or Blossom hehe), but I pay him his dues in this movie. He plays a very noble, likable character and Nicole’s only friend for a long time. Unfortunately he is completely immobile and dying. The killer tries to smoke them out by dousing the toilet floor in petrol intending to set the place on fire with them inside. Nicole is forced by Officer Deacon to shoot him in the head in an excellent scene which even now has me on the edge, with an exceptional unexpected surprise. Nicole has to escape through a high roof window and looks back to Officer Deacon one last time before leaving. But wait a minute – he’s gone now, no blood or anything! Hmmm was he a ghost or a hallucination? I don’t know again, it’s not really clarified so I can only assume (there’s that word again).
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Nicole manages to escape and runs out into the wild as the killer drives off in his beat down yellow truck. To say anything more would be a spoiler to a good ending, besides the prologue, which was just stupid and unnecessary. The prologue should have ultimately been there with the other alternate endings on the cutting room floor.
The acting in this movie is superb in my opinion. I couldn’t imagine putting myself in the mind set of having to kill this nice guy cop because he doesn’t want to burn alive while suffering paralysis, all because he came to help me. Jaimie Alexander pulls the emotions off well with only one real gripe about her character Nicole. At times the character seems confused wether she’s a survivalist badass or an emotional wreck. Maybe it’s hard to be set into a defined emotion when you’re under these circumstances, I dunno I’ve never been there, but I guess it just makes the character seem forced when they switch between two extremes. This is what I was saying earlier with |
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^^ Killing Joey Lawrence - every sane human's fantasy! |
Nicole getting on your nerves a bit. It just seems a bit silly and ultimately annoys the fuck out of me, pulling me out of the enjoyment zone.
Another gripe I have is with the woman in the Janitor’s closet and Joey Lawrence. Were they ghosts? Were they hallucinations? What the fuck was going on? Is the toilet meant to be some type of “haunted house” due to all the victims who have died there. Is the whole rest stop in some form of “Bermuda Triangle” type deal? Does it exist on a whole other spiritual plane once entered? I don’t really get any of that and it seems rather grey. Perhaps the intention was to always explain this in the sequel and I do hope it is because to be honest, I’m interested, which is always a good thing!
Third gripe, the stupid fucking sub-title – DEAD AHEAD. What the fuck does that mean? It’s called Rest Stop – she’s stopped and can’t leave – there is no dead ahead. It’s not even a good play on words, KISS fuckheads – KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. The rest of the film is relatively simple – why fuck with all that sub-title shit.
A general gripe which comes with most horror films these days is a lack of originality, but that’s looking at it from a general perspective. Like I said before I never expected originality from Rest Stop, I never expected an amazing film. I didn’t expect much of anything to be honest. But it delivered entertainment, a few chilling surprises and a great looking film. Hell maybe one day the old yellow truck with plates KLZ-303 will be a horror icon like some of the greats we’ve come to know (I’m just hoping here) and one day we will come to find out who the driver is who has been kept mysterious in ultimate fashion.
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| I personally dig the iconic appeal of the killer's beat up truck ^^ |
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A general gripe which comes with most horror films these days is a lack of originality, but that’s looking at it from a general perspective. Like I said before I never expected originality from Rest Stop, I never expected an amazing film. I didn’t expect much of anything to be honest. But it delivered entertainment, a few chilling surprises and a great looking film. Hell maybe one day the old yellow truck with plates KLZ-303 will be a horror icon like some of the greats we’ve come to know (I’m just hoping here) and one day we will come to find out who the driver is who has been kept mysterious in ultimate fashion.
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f you’re looking for a brilliantly clever & original film, surely you wont be looking through the straight-to-dvd horror release section right? If you’re looking for an entertaining way to kill an hour or so, well this is the ticket. Sometimes I just like to shut my brain off and enjoy a totally |
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dumb film like this. It’s not demanding anything more than a watch, it doesn’t want you to think hard and it doesn’t really try hard. At times it requires teeth gritting, but Rest Stop has a lot of heart and its intentions are clear. Rent it, buy it, watch it & just have some fun with it! WARNING: For those of you who struggle with dumb plots, WEED may be required.
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As I stab kick Rest Stop 2 in the head with the help of Rest Stop 1, I give this movie:
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3 OUT OF 5 JAGER-BABIES. |
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