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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: 10/07/2008
Director: Shawn Papazian
Cast: Richard Tillman, Jessie Ward, Graham Morris, Joey Mendicino, Julie Mond
Year: 2008
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The Movie:
Picking up where the first Rest Stop film left off, this movie follows a young man named Tom Hilts (Richard Tillman) who has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. After a quick welcome home party, he decides to gather up his weird red-headed pal Jared (Graham Norris) and his drinky-crow girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) to go look for his missing brother Jesse (Joey Mendicino) and his girlfriend Nicole (Julie Mond) who have been mysteriously absent for the last year.
They head out into the middle of nowhere and find the rest stop where Jesse and Nicole wound up getting into trouble previously (if you haven't seen the first film - basically they get fucked up by a madman in a pick up truck and a family of religious nutjobs who drive around in a dumpy motorhome) and things start to get weird. A beat up truck starts chasing them around and the three start hallucinating. Jared even has a hallucinatory sex scene with a blood covered Jesse! What the three friends don't realize is that the hillbilly deviants who made life suck for their missing amigos are still around and still doing their thing…
This first Rest Stop was a decent enough if a bit generic slasher/survivalist horror film that provided a marginal amount of suspense, an interesting if easy to spot twist, and some quality bloodshed. The sequel? Well, there's some quality bloodshed, but that's about it. Not that the first film was particularly deep, but this follow up picture really can't be bothered with things like character development or depth of any kind. The people who show up in this movie are there for one reason and one reason only and that's to give the guy in the truck something to chase around and terrorize. The script throws in some nonsense about how and why the truck driving killer does what he does but really, you won't care as it doesn't really make much sense anyway.
In the film's defense, the picture moves along at a good pace and there are some fairly disturbing and effective scenes of violence - one moment with a drill in particular is memorably nasty. If you don't mind turning off your brain and zoning out on this over-baked piece of cinematic junk food you can have a good time with it on that level. Don't expect much in the way of atmosphere or honest to goodness scare scenes, however. This is pretty superficial stuff even if the more surrealist elements of the storyline try for something more.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 2.40.1 VC-1 1080p anamorphic widescreen transfer is alright, but it's far from reference quality. The contrast has been cranked way up (intentionally, mind you) giving the film a fairly washed out look that is at least appropriate given the locations where the movie plays out. Detail levels aren't bad at all but there's a bit more print damage than you'd probably expect from a brand new picture. Some shots show some odd mosquito noise while others look nice and clear. There aren't really any compression problems nor is there any noticeable edge enhancement to complain about but the picture is a little inconsistent at times and it looks a bit dirty.
The best audio track on this release is the English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, though standard definition Dolby Digital tracks are available in English 5.1, Spanish 2.0 and Portuguese 2.0 with subtitles provided in English, French, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese. This isn't reference quality but it sounds alright. There are some scenes where the dialogue doesn't sound quite as strong as it could but for the most part the mix is solid. The low end kicks in when needed - the scenes with the pick up truck for example - while the levels remain pretty well balanced. There aren't any issues with hiss or distortion and the rear channels provide some nice background noise and surround effects during a few key scenes.
This release is, surprisingly enough, completely barebones. All we get are a menu and chapter selection screens - that's it, not even a trailer. Surprisingly, considering that the standard definition release contains a commentary, some featurettes, and a few other goodies.
The Final Word:
Rest Stop: Don't Look Back is a weak film that is given an appropriately lackluster release from Warner Brothers/Raw Feed.