Rest Stop

The early 2000's was riddled with plenty of torture porn flicks and modern horror jump-scare offerings. Really, the only pieces that resonated with me personally from those specific lines has been the Saw franchise and maybe the first two Hostel films. After all of these years following Raw Feed putting out the first Rest Stop movie, I thought it was just another generic installment in said sub-genre of terror cinema. It really isn't. I don't really know what this is. There are some scenes and plot holes in Rest Stop that I just don't think I understand. Either I missed something or there is a better cut of this film floating around out there somewhere, but there a few very big, main scenes that take place during the course of this picture that kind of take you out of the suspense and tension-back to reality. For no good reason. A huge chunk of time is spent with Deacon (the cop played by Joey Lawrence) and he basically ends up dying towards the end. But... the film plays it off as if he was a ghost? A memory? A flashback? I still have no damn clue. There a couple of characters that happens to earlier and it's played off as if Nicole is living through a memory or an apparition or something and it really doesn't make much sense because there is no pay-off and these scenes never add or explain anything to add to the actual plot or who this guy is in the yellow truck trying to kill Nicole. 

Honey, do something with that hair. It's a mess.

Maybe you're in a Target. You know-where both genders can go in both bathrooms.

Another horror flick where one of the main characters is a writer. I swear.

Road side love.  

This little adventure of yours doesn't seem like it's as fun as you thought it would be.

I don't think anything in your surrounding area is "normal".

Yeah. You know who that guy is.

I'm pretty sure that that guy on the radio isn't who he said he is or is going to do the right thing.

Shit was to predictable.

Oh boy. There are some serious Sawyer Family vibes in this R.V.

Shut up about the damn bible you Elvis Costello/Gene Hackman mix-up motherfucker.

  In the end zits and zombies, Rest Stop started out being something that seemed like it was going to be a solid new slice of fear for us to enjoy when it was first released (and there are sequels) but there are just to many flaws with this initial entry for me to want to go on to watch part two. There is no explanation as to why the characters she interacts with while the guy in the yellow truck is stalking her end up dying and then just vanish like they where ghosts or something and I actually kind of wish there was more of that really fucking weird family in the R.V. When Nicole is with them and she ends up discovering the little mongoloid child-person in the back messing around with a camera...that actually kind of took me off guard a little bit because I was expecting it to be the guy from the truck taking pictures of the people he was killing while he was killing them. Also, the school bus where he did those horrible things really wasn't in the film at all. Barely. So, so disappointing. There are much better movies to get into that are cut from a cleaner section of the same cloth. Remember the dryer sheets. Static is a bitch.