Rest Stop(2006)

This direct to video horror is a good example of a cheaply made movie which is entertaining. I enjoyed this one. There isn't much to it, but it is fun and it will pass away a couple of hours. There aren't many stars in this one, but Joey Lawrence(of Blossom fame) stars as a cop.















A guy, Jess(Joey Mendicino) picks up his girlfriend, Nicole(Jaimie Alexander) and they head out to California together. Nicole has to go to the bathroom so they look for a rest stop which they find. Nicole enters and is appalled by the dirty conditions of the bathroom. She does her business and comes out to find her man is gone. She calls out for him and she is baffled by his disappearance. She becomes very worried when she finds his phone which is thrown to her by some weirdo in a truck(aren't guys with trucks always the weirdo!). She discovers an RV and she hitches a lift with the Adams Family until they throw her out for looking at the devil's spawn in the back.

She goes back to the rest stop and she hears a girl crying and she sees that she is hurt. The girl tells her about the evil man who hurt her and that he tortured her. Nicole is freaked when the girl disappears. Did she really see her? She tries to find help but there is no one around. Suddenly she hears something and she sees a cop on a motorcycle. She thinks that she has been rescued from the hell that she is in. Of course, her relief doesn't last long. The killer in the truck runs over the cops legs without any problem and he is dragged by Nicole into the restroom. One point here- the cop has a radio and a gun and Nicole ignores these and just continues to be terrorized by the killer. That is a big flaw that I saw in this movie.

She chats with the cop about his family etc.(WHY? YOU SHOULD BE TRYING TO GET AWAY!!!) The invincible killer returns and locks both of them in the restroom with no problem .
Nicole tries to open the door but then the killer bites her finger off. The cop tells her to shoot him when he comes back(why didn't she do that in the first place? The mind boggles!). She does shoot at him, but she doesn't hit him. The killer drops a camera into the restroom. Nicole looks at it and sees Jess being tortured. The killer pours gasoline into the building and Nicole tries to find a way out and she finds a hatch in the ceiling. The cop tells her to kill him rather than burn to death so she shoots him. The killer lights a match and drops it into the restroom. She jumps into the hatch and she sees that the cops body has disappeared.

Nicole gets outside and she encounters the killer again. She sneaks up behind him with a crow bar and she hits him over the head. The person drops to the ground and she turns him over to see what he looks like, only to discover that it is Jess with his mouth sewn shut. She is horrified and she makes a petrol bomb to throw at her attacker should he come after her. She sees the truck coming towards her and she lights the petrol bomb and throws it at the truck which is instantly alight. She runs away and thinks that she is free when she is runs into a man and everything fades to black. The movie ends with a new girl going into the restroom which has been renovated after the fire. She hears Nicole crying and runs for help, but there is no one there. Nicole is calling for help, but nothing can help her now. The last scene shows the father from the family in the RV burying the man who was found burned in the truck and telling his deformed son that this is their little secret...The killer's truck is going down the highway once again...

This is an entertaining movie but it is a bit frustrating when Nicole didn't use her head. But, in horror movies, the lead characters are so often dumb. There is an entertaining sequel called Rest Stop 2:Don't Look Back. I will give the first one a 7/10.