Not too bad 80s slasher homage with a wonderful Robert Patrick, cast in a supporting part as an uptight, military-vet Vice President. The formula doesn't stray in "Lost After Dark": high school teens flee the night dance for a trip to a cabin in a stolen school bus, running out of gas on some remote county road, soon encountering a bearded, cannibalistic psychopath with only one singular mission and that is to ruin their festivities through whatever weapon (whether it be in the barn or his ancestral home) is available to him. I think, if anything, "Lost After Dark" will perhaps be best known as a slasher that updates the pattern of who gets killed first (not what the 80s were known for with their slashers). Typically the worst of the lot get the ax or knife at the onset, but this goes a totally different route: those that are quite likable and honorable seem to be the first to go while the more cowardly and self-serving last a while longer. Make no bones about it: few leave this film alive among the young cast. As with other films in the genre it has the kids scattering apart, seemingly *always* running *back* to the Joad house where he never fails (well, almost never) to take advantage of their folly, capitalizing on false moves and errors in judgment. Patrick sees the kids drive off in the bus and makes it an effort to find them, soon squaring off with the killer
and not faring well despite talking a big game in one of the more amusing points in the film. Most shocking scene could be when the diva stuck-up blond of the group is so worried about her well being she snaps the neck of her whimpering dog! Would Paris Hilton do that??? Nastiest murder sequence might be the corkscrew twisted through the back of the letterman jacket jock as he tries to escape through a hall door where the confines are too tight with chains keeping exits unattainable. There's a barn—no surprise, right?—where some of the characters run *into* to hide (?!?!) with the expected pitchfork making its appearance once again impaling a victim. A car on a jack drops on a victim who decides to crawl underneath it (!) as the killer follows behind him. Memorable homage to Fulci's Zombie II has a victim pulled into a broken window where his eye is impaled on a piece of glass. Yep, the ax and animal ground trap surface (would you be disappointed if they didn't?) to disrupt efforts of either heroism or attempts to run away. Funniest scene could be where, as a group, they initially decide to confront the killer with weapons in hand, but as he draws closer to them, that idea changed in a hurry. There's a significant emphasis on the film's setting in the 80s, and those involved in the production go to great lengths to mimic clothes, mores, dialogue, etc. There's attempts to reflect age on film and even a "missing reel" tear midway as the killer is closing in on a victim caught in a bear trap. The dilapidated house on the hill, in ruins and rotting, makes for a fine place of doom where the fates of many will be snuffed out. There's always that one scene in the film that leaves me personally perplexed: one of the final teens has been able to get far away from the killer and even meets up with one of her pals who had been presumed dead only to stop and sit down beside a tree! I liked that this film didn't necessarily follow the rules of who lives and dies in the usual order, giving us a final girl I wasn't expecting. Those who made this know their slasher and make sure to feature the genre's usual suspects faithfully
which will certainly alienate those who aren't fans of the genre which this doesn't care to appeal to.
Review of Lost After Dark
