Genres: Horror, Slasher, Slasher
Director: Ian Kessner
Writers: Ian Kessner, Bo Ransdell
Star actors: Sarah Fisher, Mark Wiebe
When it comes to horror movies, especially modern slashers, there’s an unnecessary amount of emphasis on doing something original and new. More often than not, modern horror takes what was successful about older films and tries to put some kind of unique spin on it which only waters down the authenticity of the film.
“Lost after Dark”‘s first thirty minutes lead you to believe you’re about to watch another terrible 80’s throwback movie with no sense of direction or purpose. A gore-less opening kill, followed by stereotypical characters worrying about boys and drugs and blablabla. I wasn’t at all impressed.
However, once the killings start (And they commence in a HUGE way!) the movie progresses to an intense massacre where you really can’t tell who is going to die next. The first kill out of the eight main characters was absolutely unexpected. The second death was also super unexpected. Every preconception I had dropped.
That’s what I loved about this movie; It knows exactly what it is. It’s your standard slasher movie, a cannibalistic killer hunting down degenerate teens and messing them up. It becomes original, new and exciting by challenging our expectations. The play on stereotyping is especially effective. The virginal final girl, the slutty blonde girl, the total dick of a guy who just wants to hook up – they’re all here but they go down very different paths than the opening half hour leads you to believe.
The special effects were awesome and got progressively grotesque as the movie rolled on, (keep an eye out for a goresome death scene involving, well, an eye….) with the tone getting bleaker and bleaker as well. Quite a few times in the film I found myself sitting up and smiling because I was so surprised at what was going on.
As I said at the beginning, modern horror can be a mixed bag and a lot of the time it is these attempts at originality that ruin a movie. “Lost after Dark” is not going to win any awards, it might not even be anybody’s favorite film, but it perfectly captures everything that a slasher movie should be: It’s fun, gory, and dares to push the horror cliches, even if just a little.