Lost After Dark (Blu-ray / DVD)
Matt Boiselle
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Starring Sarah Fisher, Robert Patrick, Mark Wiebe
Directed by Ian Kessner
Just because a movie claims to be a “throwback” to the days of neon fashion, poofy hairdos, and overly synthesized music (you guessed it – the glorious 80’s), doesn’t necessarily mean that it can be pulled off correctly, but in the case of director Ian Kessner’s slasher-iffic Lost After Dark, that accuracy comes pretty darn close. What do you say we hop in the DeLorean and time-travel back into the Reagan-esque days to toss this one into the grinder and see what spits out, shall we?
Jam-packed with character names that are paying tribute to some of the more recognizable 80’s horror monikers – we’ve got Laurie, Wes, Tobe, and Jamie just to name a few, but one of the vixens on display here is Adrienne (Kendra Leigh Timmons), the sweetheart of the bunch – it’s 1984, and on the night of the Spring Ball at her high school, she decides to shed the good-girl image and head out to party in a hotwired school bus (pretty ballsy) with a bunch of pals, much to the chagrin of the principal, Mr. Cunningham, played by Robert Patrick. His former days of fighting in the jungles of Vietnam haven’t left his mind, and he’s got no tolerance for troublemakers. The fiesta hits an immense snag when their pilfered chariot craps out dead in the middle of nowhere, and the only solace is that of a secluded farmhouse (isn’t it always). Added to the group’s mounting problems is that the house in question supposedly belonged to the Joad family, a notorious clan of hillbilly-cannibals, or “cannonballs” as one self-absorbed partier mistakenly refers to them as. Apparently, according to local legend, only one of the demented family members escaped a police raid and shootout…oh, Junior??
Junior (Wiebe) is simply anything but – a hulking mass of jagged teeth, complete with a shaggy-do and a bad attitude to match, reduced to a low-level series of grunts and growls, he inflicts some serious damage to various members of our traveling schoolmates with a variety of implements, yet unfortunately many of the night shots mask the true joy of watching the blood spray around the farm. Performances are standard-fare, with the usual assemblage of stereotypical personalities – we’ve got the slut, the druggie, the douchey athlete, and the fat kid who’s a lost cause when it comes to snagging that woman he’s got his eyes on. All in all, the roles are fun to watch, and Patrick is stoic and humorous at the same time as the imposing hard-ass emissary. Visually, the movie has all the scratchy and grainy spots any aficionado of the 80’s classics would recognize, and there’s even a nice little “missing reel” spot before one of the killings that reminds me of the days when projectors would wreak havoc upon delicate pieces of film. Granted, there is the illusion that this is supposed to be an 80’s piece, yet some of the actors look as if they just came out of the wardrobe trailer, and some minor lines of dialogue don’t exactly seem to match up with the lingo back then, but hey, these are nothing more than small blips on a very big radar, and Kessner should be commended for his representation of the long-gone good-time hack-n-slash presentation.
Overall, Lost After Dark is just a fun watch, and you can tell that a lot of care went into the creation, right down to the simply gorgeous artwork on the DVD and Blu-ray covers. Simply put, if you want a nice little visit back to the horrors of ’84, then by all means check this one out.
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