Spring Ball, 1984. Adrienne (Kendra Timmins, Midnight Sun, Wingin’ It), a straight-A student, joins her quarterback crush Sean (Justin Kelly, Maps To The Stars, Big Muddy) and some friends in sneaking out of their high school dance for some unsupervised mayhem. The teens’ party plans hit a snag when they run out of gas on a deserted road. They head out on foot and discover a rundown farmhouse where they hope to find help, but instead find themselves at the mercy of Junior Joad (Mark Wiebe, Sweet Karma), a cannibal killer from an urban legend. After the brutal murder of one of their friends, the group s quest for help becomes one of survival. Will anyone survive the night?If the people behind Lost After Dark meant to set out and make a slasher that you could put along side 80’s slashers, then they did indeed succeed in doing that. The thing is, this isn’t on the level of such A-list slashers like Halloween 2 or Friday the 13th 3 (or whatever sequel you want to pick). Instead it ends up being a throwback you could toss along side such things as Madman, Humongous, or Final Exam. I don’t want you to think I don’t like the movie, because I do. It’s just that the movie does a few things that annoy me along the way. The start of the movie is fine. We have a quick kill, we are introduced to the cast, and everything feels really retro and you get those good slasher movie vibes flowing through your body. The only problem is the movie makes us wait until about 40 something minutes in before the bodies start dropping again and while they try to get cute with the order some folks die, they also kind of take you out of it because of the same method. Still, you can’t deny it accomplishes the feel it was going for and as a man who loves slasher movies, especially from the 80s, I still found a lot of fun with the movie despite some of the flaws.
While most your characters here are about typical as you’d imagine, Robert Patrick is here in a role that really stands out in a good way. He’s probably more memorable than our movie’s slasher is. There is comedic moments here and to the movie’s credit, those moments are actually funny. Horror comedies can be iffy, but this one seems to be done right or at least right enough. The movie even takes place in 1984 and as far as I could tell it does look a whole lot like what I’ve seen in movies made from that time. Seeing as how I was just one year old at the time, I can’t tell from personal experience. What matters is entertainment value and the movie has that. It does frustrate you a bit, but not unlike most of the very films it was trying to mimic in its style. It isn’t perfect, but if you are a slasher film fanatic, then you will be more than content enough with what you get here.