"Rest Stop"
One of the most truly idiotic films I have ever seen, and I have a huge amount of tolerance when it comes to bad films.This film has no excuse whatsoever for being as bad as it is, except for an idiotic script and director. This film had the money, the technology, the time, and the eye-candy to be good. It's a simple premise for a film, nigh impossible to screw up. "Rest Stop" is one big screw up.
It's expected that when a movie begins with a road trip, there will be an almost mandatory music video montage. Acoustic guitar will play, scenes of the happy travelers cruising along in their car past farms, cities, etc. will play out. They will fumble with the radio and make silly faces, smoke dope, laugh etc. The director chose to up that count a bit, and as a result several times in this film the viewer is sitting around watching what is effect a meaningless music video. Even worse, the music sucks.
Now horror movie protagonists are not known for their intelligence, we all know this, but when the viewer is absolutely flogged with idiocy it's very hard to play dumb ourselves.
- near-dead policeman lays at your feet, victim of the killer. The killer is ambling around like a drunken fool before you. Do you grab the policeman's gun? Do you perhaps grab the policemans radio? Not this idiot.
- The killer's vehicle is before you, empty with keys inside. Do you jump in and flee? Not this idiot.
- You have a deranged lunatic on your trail. You find a bottle of whiskey. Do you get so plowed that you finally pass out? This idiot chose to do so.
Im sorry, there's just no excuse for the sheer stupidity of the central character of this film, other than a reason to draw the film out.The entire movie itself should have been boiled down, cut in half. The lead character is a stupid, whiny poltroon that had no right to survive the ordeal as long as she did. The killer, an incompetent moron. And the stupid, almost randomly inserted "wacky backwoods family" was an utterly lame attempt to portray something like a Texas Chainsaw type backwoods brood. Unfortunately, they have none of the realistic panache that makes the aforementioned hicks from hell so memorable. There's some ok gore, but I can say without a doubt that it isnt worth sitting thru the rest of this absolutely tedious film. Thank God I only rented it
"The Descent"
Now this baby was worth the rental. A multitude of Lara Croft wannabes go caving and discover a race of CHUDs. That is, Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers, for those who didnt grow up in the 80's. This film was good in many ways, one being that the suspense wasnt limited to just the monster encounters, the actual climbing and caving stuff the women go thru had me biting my nails!
I rant and rave about the bad movie, and give a little blurb about the good film, I know. It's late. Trust me, Descent is a decent film that you wanna see if you like a good old suspenseful monster movie.