Film Review--Rest Stop

Rest Stop
written and directed by John Shiban
starring Jaimie Alexander, Joey Mendicino, Joseph Lawrence, Michael Childers, Diane Salinger, Curtis Taylor

In this rather fascinating piece of pure Terror porn, a poor pathetic girl bawls, whelps, and whines for the duration of the film. It’s as annoying as it seems and it never gives up.

Nicole Carrow (Alexander) has big dreams of making it in Hollywood. She runs away with her boyfriend Jess Hilts (Mendicino) and he drives them to California. Along the way Nicole’s bladder causes Jess to find a rest stop. She runs to use the dilapidated, thoroughly disgusting bathroom and when she emerges Jess and the car are gone. From here on out, she is terrorized by a man in a yellow truck. We never see him and all we know about him is he’s exceedingly effective at his little hobby. He turns her into a blubbering, babbling bundle of nerves and all she does for the rest of the film is cry and scream. That’s really it. He comes back periodically and she screams some more. A cop (Lawrence) shows up and is run over by the man in the truck who promptly runs over his legs again. A great portion of the film is spent with the cop as he lays in agony unable to move. He becomes a real person at this point and his plight is something worth empathizing over.

It’s a strange thing to create a film that focuses almost entirely on a young woman’s terror. The film obsessively focuses on Nicole’s fearful expressions which she displays at every turn. There is no let up in sight and the only thing to focus on is the pain in her eyes. One wonders sometimes what the purpose of these films truly are. Spending just shy of ninety minutes with such a wounded creature cannot be classified as an edifying experience. There is no poetry here, only the nagging insistence of imminent bodily harm at the hands of a sadistic maniac who comes off as a cipher more than anything else. The unpredictability of the threat, the inability to peg down the ultimate intentions of the faceless fiend–lend the film a definite chaotic element.

The film features a family of distorted personality who prove to be no help whatsoever. Lost in her torment Nicole notices that the RV that’s been parked in the rest stop’s lot is leaving. She manages to hitch a ride with them and learns quickly that they are uninterested in her plight. The Mother is not going to listen to her and the family is ostensibly religious. The father, who is driving, chatters on about God’s avenging angels, the seraphim, and how they are going to wreak terrible vengeance upon the earth. The Mother lifts her hands in some sort of cruel trance and the twin boys suck at their straws disinterestedly. Nicole suddenly leaps up and runs to the back of the RV and opens a door revealing a gnarled, misshapen boy snapping instamatic pictures from his wheelchair. This agitates the Father and Mother and she lurches into a mantra screaming “Fucking Whore” over and again. They finally push Nicole out and she finds herself at the same rest stop.

Nicole finds another girl named Tracy trapped in the bathroom stall and we learn from flashbacks that she’s been branded and carved up by the same man who is after Nicole. Also, we learn that there have been dozens of missing persons over the years and that the man’s tormenting past time goes back at least to 1971. All that can be done is to wait for the inevitable and the man in the truck doesn’t disappoint. He’s bold and determined which is what one wants in such a demented force of nature. He’s relentless and each time he comes back he makes his presence firmly felt and Nicole bursts out in a new round of tears and obvious distress. Eventually, her crying jags start to grate on the nerves and one no longer cares what happens to her. She slobbers incessantly and one cannot wait until she gets what is coming for her. It takes a while but eventually we get our wish. It’s fairly grisly but seems appropriate. At least it puts an end to her gibbering.

Non stop exercises in fear cannot sustain themselves because the audience eventually tunes out. Without worthwhile characters to get behind, all the torment loses its luster. This is readily apparent in this film as Nicole proves to be nothing more than a nuisance who does two things throughout the film and neither of them enhance whatever story is being attempted here. She screams and she cries and that is all she has to offer. I suppose we are meant to identify with her in some fashion or another but victims are never worth caring about because all they do is exhibit signs of absolute weakness bordering on hysteria and that’s no fun in the end. Granted, only a real sadist could identify with the man in the truck but at least he has a mission and is driven forward by a conviction. He has a purpose in life even if this purpose is simply to torment and kill as many vulnerable humans as he can get his hands on. Also, if it is true that he has been doing this for thirty five years then he’s obviously competent and somewhat ingenious. In the end he’s much more alluring because we never see him. He’s shrouded in mystery and remains an enigma for the duration of the film.

Terror porn celebrates a deliberate, pressing mayhem upon the flesh of ostensibly innocent victims. The key to it is that the audience be allowed to watch key individuals suffer at the hands of a tormentor. There is good torture porn and bad but I don’t think I can tell the difference. It’s most likely good when there is absolute debasement and will destruction and the person is reduced to a truly pathetic state. It is bad when it doesn’t quite reach this point and the victim is left with some of their dignity intact. Yet there are shades in between and that’s where this film fits in. The girl in this film certainly suffers but she could have suffered a whole lot worse. Indeed, there are so many more things that could have been done to her over the course of the film. Still, it’s the psychological torment that makes this into a rather effective inclusion in this genre. She is brought low and her humanity is reduced to almost nothing. She becomes something of an animal who exists purely on instinct as everything else has been stripped away. Nevertheless, she isn’t broken and very easily could have been. We get but a taste of what the man in the truck is capable of and it is not pretty.

Overall, this film is designed to demonstrate what abject terror can do to a person who is thrust into a mightily dangerous situation when their personal autonomy is threatened and this threat is reinforced over time. The girl is psychologically brutalized to the point that she can hardly act to save herself. She finally manages one last ditched effort which turns out to be spectacular in its composition. Otherwise, she’s utterly helpless and spends most of her time in hysterics. It’s possible that her reaction to her situation is supposed to have a specific impact on the audience. How much of the target audience revels in Nicole’s pain and gnashing of teeth? There has to be a certain percentage who are stimulated by the machinations of her grief. There is always the possibility that this is the driving force that encourages people to watch these films. What is the age/sex demographic? Is the viewing of these films a “healthy” pastime?