When some more folks go looking for the people that disappeared in the first Rest Stop movie, they find more of the same. The film was pretty good up until they started spouting some Indian mumbo-jumbo.
Tom (Richard Tillman) is just back from Iraq. He’s having a big party with his family and his girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward). His brother Jess (Joey Mendicino) has been missing for a year. Jess and his girlfriend Nicole (Julie Mond) were going on a cross country trip to Hollywood and never arrived (the events of the first film).
Tom and Marilyn decide that he’s going to take the same trip to see if they can find out what happened to the couple. Tom’s friend Jared (Graham Norris) decides to tag along in his clunker of a car because he’s always had a crush on Nicole and hopes to find her and be her knight in shining armor.
They stop at the gas station with a creepy attendant (Steve Railsback) and he recognizes the picture of Jess and Nicole and points them towards the Old Highway. When Marilyn stops in the ladies room of a deserted rest stop she appears to see the ghost of Nicole and a yellow truck begins to menace our heroes.
I must admit that I haven’t seen the first Rest Stop. I gleaned enough to make out what was going on, but I would imagine seeing the first film would’ve helped. I don’t know if there was much explanation as to what was happening to Jess and Nicole in the first one, but this film adds some Native American mumbo jumbo to explain why they and our new heroes can’t seem to escape the creepy truck driver.
The presence of some weird religious “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”-ish family in a Winnebago also confused me, but they also appeared in the first film.
It doesn’t help that a 1972 prologue shows some folks getting killed that appear in our modern times. I was able to catch up with what was happening but I thought that this second sequel will get more mileage if you’ve seen the first one. There are some bloody scenes in a yellow bus that may please gore fans.
The folks in the Winnebago just seemed a bit over the top for me. It’s my understanding from reading reviews of the first film that the origins of the truck driver was kept in the shadows for the most part and bringing him into the daylight by explaining them seems to tarnish them a bit. That and the explanation didn’t jibe with me.
It sounded like the screenwriters made it up and put the “Native American” spin on it to give it some legitimacy. It was a decent little thriller and sure the hell beat the piss out of Joy Ride 2.
Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary from director Shawn Papazian and writer/producer John Shiban. The 12 minute “Doomed to Repeat” is a making of feature. There’s also a 1 minute alternate ending, 10 minutes of deleted scenes, and trailers for other Raw Feed flicks.
Rest Stop 2 sure beats some of the other films that I’ve seen a two after, but it still seems to fall short of the mark. I guess I should’ve looked at the first one, but que sera sera.
Rest Stop - Don’t Look Back is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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