Rest Stop (2006)
Starring Jaimie Alexander, Joey Mendicino
and Deanna Russo
Directed & Written by John Shiban

 

“Rest Stop: Dead Ahead” is one of those direct-to-video movies. The cover artwork gives you an idea of what’s in store. In this case, I viewed the R-rated version and I must say it straddles the fine line between R and NC-17.

The movie was written and directed by John Shiban (writer and executive producer of TV’s “The X-Files” and “Supernatural”). It’s a pretty simple story. Two young people are traveling from Texas to California on a road trip.

Jesse (Joey Mendicino) and Nicole (Jaimie Alexander) are the young couple driving to the glamourous destination of Hollywood. Everything seems to going fine. They’re in love, having the time of their lives, and looking forward to some new adventures. Nicole feels that she is her parents’ private demon. This road trip seems like her ticket out of a life she no longer wants a part of.

Unfortunately, this trip will not be what they hoped for. Stopping at a run-down rest stop in the middle of nowhere (though it looks a lot like somewhere in California) will be an unnerving mistake. Their journey brings to mind such movies as the remakes of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Hills Have Eyes” with assorted backwoods characters and terrorizing encounters.

The terror begins when this mysterious old yellow truck shows up and irritates Jesse before they arrive at the rest stop. Jesse shrugs off the incident as the couple goes to look for a rest stop.

The yellow truck driver, only seen in shadows, brings to mind the semi-truck driver in Steven Spielberg’s “Duel”. This driver is a no-name, no-faced, menace who has made a career of terrorizing unsuspecting rest stop visitors. The bulletin board at the rest stop has several missing person posters.

Apparently, Nicole and Jesse do not see this board and proceed to stop. Bad mistake! Nicole goes to the rest stop’s bathroom -- a place that looks like it’s been deserted for years -- and when she goes back outside, Jesse has vanished. She thinks he’s just playing around with her, and she goes to look for him.

Nicole is able to locate an old ham radio in a building at the rest stop. She gets the radio working and makes a call for help. Time goes by and then she gets a call back. The voice sounds almost like the psycho truck driver from “Joy Ride” (the Paul Walker movie), and appears like someone who will help. She finds out this caller is also named Jesse like her boyfriend.

She goes outside to her car, and then the mysterious yellow truck appears and rams her car. The truck then plays back her distress call. Nicole is terrified at this point. The people who witness the truck smashing Jesse’s car are a typical crazy family in an old motorhome. They are much like the inbred family in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and don’t listen to Nicole as she asks them for help. They don’t help and Nicole is berated by the crazy woman in the motorhome who screams “Shut up, you whore!”

After that encounter, she manages to get back to the rest stop bathroom. In the bathroom, Nicole discovers a painted over wall with several messages from the truck driver’s victims. The victims wrote the year they wrote the message (covering several years) and the license number KZL 303 -- the same number as the yellow truck.

She then finds Tracy, one of the missing persons posted on the bulletin board. Tracy recalls the horror this mysterious truck driver put her through. Tracy tells Nicole “He’ll be back. The driver, he always comes back!” Tracy is locked up in a small room inside the bathroom. Or is Tracy really there? Is Nicole slowing going crazy from the day’s events?

Joey Lawrence (yes, Joey Lawrence!) arrives at the rest stop as a motorcycle cop, Officer Michael Deacon. Nicole gives the officer an account of what has happened. The yellow truck returns to the rest stop and officer Deacon goes to ask him a few questions. The officer tells Nicole that the guy was just lost and circled around the rest stop a few times. Nicole is upset and screams that the truck driver is a liar.

The yellow truck drives off but then stops up the road. Nicole and the officer are talking outside in the parking lot and then suddenly the truck driver runs over the officer. She is able to get officer Deacon back inside the restroom although he is heavily bleeding. He tries to give Nicole some hope that backup is coming. Nicole doesn’t believe him. “He’ll be back” and “We’re all alone” is all she can say to officer Deacon.

The R version has the blood, gore, nudity and the language you’d expect from a horror movie. The running time of 85 minutes is perfect. It shows you just enough to let your imagination go into overdrive. Jaimie Alexander is a promising actress who will be in the upcoming movie “Thor”.

If the sight of blood and unrelenting terror causes you to watch movies with your hands covering your eyes, this movie is not for you. It’s not as graphic as most torture porn (“Hostel” “Saw” “Wolf Creek”) although there are a few squeamish moments. It also manages to have that creepy “Wolf Creek” quality too.

The reality -- that there will be a road trip in your future and that old yellow trucks and rest stops do exist -- may have you think twice about stopping at an isolated rest stop. Of course you can tell yourself “It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie”. Then again, you can choose to stop at only clean restrooms at populated gas stations along the way, or just fly to Grandma’s house for the next family gathering.