Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		1.5
Audio		1.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		1.0

Rest Stop Blu-ray Movie Review

Don't stop for this mess.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 1, 2009

Everybody's got their own private demon.

Is there anything in modern cinema that is more worthless than lousy horror movies? It seems that these days any tired, lame-brained idea can be made into a derivative slasher picture. All that is needed is a killer with some scary identifiable feature (or not), a creepy locale (or not), and at least a pair of quarter-witted teenage fodder (yes, this is one requirement that cannot be left out of the equation). Throw the teenagers in front of a camera, make sure an attractive girl (preferably blond) is in the mix so she can be the lone survivor, bloodied and beaten but still tickin' at film's end, shoot for 80 some-odd minutes, and bam! a horror movie there is. Oh, and make sure to market it as "uncut" or "unrated" once it comes to home video (even if the studio never released the film to theaters). Rest Stop follows the formula, but it has also somehow taken the basic horror outline and worsened it. At least movies like the afore-alluded to Prom Night feature a semblance of cohesion, production values, and passable acting. Rest Stop: Dead Ahead offers none of that. This is bad stuff; the film may pass for a decent amateur outing on a shoestring budget, but Rest Stop even manages to give direct-to-video a bad name.

Yeah, me too.

Tired of her safe and boring family life in an affluent Argyle, Texas (it's north of Dallas . . . hey, speaking of, when is North Dallas Forty coming to Blu-ray?) home, Nicole (Jaimie Alexander) skips town with her boyfriend Jessie (Joey Mendicino) for California sun and fun. The trip is going by swimmingly until Nicole needs to stop for a bathroom break, and her insistence of locating a real bathroom leads the pair to a worn down rest stop with a bathroom as inviting as a Cenobite New Year's eve get-together. When she's done, she discovers Jessie is long gone, and soon thereafter she falls victim to a maniacal individual driving a beat up yellow Ford pickup. Her only hope is to elude capture and hide out in the rest stop until he leaves her alone -- or kills her.

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead plays like a patchwork movie with little flow. It's barely coherent, ugly to look at, annoying beyond belief, and features ignorant characters and an uninteresting villain. Most of the film features Nicole crying in a rest stop bathroom. Really. Oh, she goes outside, hallucinates, swears randomly, and displays staggering levels of ignorance with a cop (see below), but for the most part, it's Nicole sobbing for the camera. She becomes more and more annoying with every passing frame, to the point where one cannot help but wish the killer would get her just to shut her up. As she continues to monologue, it becomes all too clear that the film has nothing better to show, and her incessant drivel only attempts to mask that fact, not to mention the terrible production values and ridiculous, none-too-scary plot. Only Rest Stop: Dead Ahead could take a truly frightening prospect -- trapped in a bathroom by a maniac -- and make it the most ridiculous thing ever committed to film.

Perhaps worst of all, Rest Stop: Dead Ahead insults audiences with characters so brainless even a zombie would ignore them. The characters take the term "ignorance" to gargantuan new heights that even Superman (finally, a good movie referenced in this review!) couldn't leap in a single bound. At one point, Nicole is almost rescued by a police officer, until he falls victim to the yellow truck. While Nicole is helping the wounded officer of the peace, the killer gets out of the truck, and what does she do? She sits there, watching him, from no more than 10 to 15 feet away, when she could have taken the officer's sidearm and plugged the killer with a few .357 Magnums . . . and shame on the officer for not telling her to do so, either! Then, when he finally tells her to take the gun some 20 minutes later, the music swells like it's some strong moment in the film, when it fact it's the worst, considering it should have been done earlier. Adding to the incredible display of foolishness, the officer instructs her to shoot at an unidentifiable target through a door, and then orders her to check to see if she hit him. Good job, officer. To top it off, the officer at one point tells her not to bother trying to shoot the bad guy anymore, because she'll just miss. Way to instill confidence, sir! Sadly, this cop (played by Joseph Lawrence) is the best actor in the movie, and his scenes are almost passable. In any other movie, he'd be a nobody, a throwaway character, but here, he's a bright beacon of acting hope.

Rest Stop Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead pulls over onto Blu-ray with an ugly 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. Not only is the movie terrible, but it looks awful, too. The film features a rough, rugged look, one that is dark and dreary, with muted colors, minimal detail, and smooth-looking objects. Many background details appear smeared and lacking in definition. Black levels are decent, though there appears to be an appreciable loss of detail in many dark scenes. Flesh tones are inconsistent at best, at times appearing normal, and at others ranging from orange to pink. There is a tremendous amount of noise over much the image, particularly in the darker corners. The presentation is rather inconsistent, and is certainly not helped by the dismal cinematography and shooting locations. This is one of the least impressive transfers currently available on Blu-ray.

Rest Stop Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hear Nicole whimpering and whining in Rest Stop: Dead Ahead with its lackluster Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. For all the times Warner has failed to offer lossless audio on their biggest releases, they oddly deliver a lossless mix here, and the results are incredibly substandard. This track is front heavy with virtually no rear channel presence, either in support of the front or through the use of discrete sound effects. A few random effects come across as passably good, such as when a pickup truck rams a car in chapter seven or the bad guy tries to get inside a barricaded rest stop in chapter 10. One instance of decent bass comes during an explosion in chapter 18. Dialogue reproduction is adequate, though the movie might just play better on mute, anyway. That's really about all she wrote for this one.

Rest Stop Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead comes to Blu-ray with minimal supplements. The disc offers three alternate endings, all presented in 480p standard definition, two photo albums (On the Bus and Scotty's Blog Exposé) and the film's trailer (480p, 1:43).

Rest Stop Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead is the very epitome of horror movie drivel. The acting is awful, the script in shambles, the production values nil, and the film is just plain ugly to look at, failing to capture that gritty, grimy look that can be effective if done right. Warner Brothers presents this Raw Feed film on Blu-ray in a package nearly as dismal as the film itself. The transfer barely passes for high definition material, the lossless soundtrack is one of the dullest in memory, and the supplements are not worth the effort. Overall, this is one of the very worst packages available on Blu-ray and is best left on the store shelf.