Strong and Moving!

Overrated and overhyped

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Saw 'Rest Stop', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.Giving 'Rest Stop' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Rest Stop' is a great film (mediocre actually) because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.'Rest Stop' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue. Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected.The setting is effectively spooky. Initially, there are spooky and suspenseful moments, it isn't dull, and the storytelling initially does intrigue. Admired that it tried to be more than a standard slasher film, the supernatural element does intrigue but that it's open to interpretation so divisively says a lot for things feeling confused and muddled too often. However, the story was severely wanting in the second half after starting off promisingly. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough, some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point.Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air and it all felt abrupt. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense (where there is barely any of either), scares could have been more consistent (again nowhere near enough) and some weren't surprising enough and had no atmosphere, the over-obvious sound not helping. Coherence wasn't a strong suit either.Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a fair bit of cheese and blandness going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. There is very little menace to the conflict, uncreative and unscary kills, the direction is phoned in and generally the acting is subpar with some lifeless lead acting from Jaimie Alexander. Elements intended to "spice things up" (gore and profanity were overused and gratuitous).Overall, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Rest StopWatched this last night. The film has been around for 10 years. It looked fresh, with a raw style, maybe they over cooked the high contrast from time to time. The cast did a good job. Jaimie Alexander was excellent as the lead female. Camera work too is good, as are the bloody special effects. All in all, first impressions are good. I would attempt to describe the story, but others here have done so already. Did it make sense? I'm not so sure, as it is one of those types of films. All I will say is, Rest Stop takes place at a Rest Stop, a place in the middle of nowhere, a place to park the car and take a leak in some run down toilets. There is a bad guy, baseball cap wearing, drives a small yellow truck. As far as I could tell, the actions of the truck driver are not made clear. To be honest, the story is not great. Less of a story, more of a situation anyone could find themselves in given the correct mixtures of ingredients.

It's unthinkable to me how money can sometimes trickle down to a complete waste. It takes a particularly bad film to make me think what is essentially a useless thought: they make them because they can stand them in the videostore in a row of samey titles and people like me will pick them off the shelf for a night with friends.A girl is menaced by a redneck with a truck around a rest stop, how hard can it be to simply do a decent job?Here's a glimpse of just how bad. A cop arrives at one point, he's faced with a distraught girl (with clear marks of abuse on her) who yells about being chased around and her boyfriend kidnapped, the same yellow truck she has described arrives at just that moment. What does the cop do? Walks up to the driver, converses for a while, and comes back reassured that the guy was just lost and asking for directions. Eegad.Oh but there's a twist that explains, a real hoot.

Stopping at a seemingly-deserted rest stop while on their way to California, a woman finds the area stalked by a vicious killer intended to torment and torture her and anyone else that comes along to help, forcing her into an extreme battle to escape the building alive.This turned out to be a marginally-enjoyable slasher effort, which rather curiously seems to straddle several different lines and manages to make some work and some don't. The survival-horror and tormenting here are pretty good, as the ever-escalating series of confrontations with the killer, the singular-location setting being used to great effect and the gradual increase of gore all makes for some good times. Then, it seems to descend into parody with several scenes where instead of exploiting the brutal they represent in concept, the execution is utterly laughable and silly, completely clashing in tone and feel. There's also hints of the supernatural at work here, especially the subplot about the girl in the room, but it's not nearly all that bad and somewhat subtle anyway, and overall this one does seem to be enjoyable more often than not.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and drug use.