Why is Lost After Dark one of the hits of the year? Why is one of the best revisions of the slasher of recent times? And, above all, why Lost After Dark is the best remake of the classic eighties slashers?
If anything define the slasher subgenre is always follows the same rules. You can put some surprises on it, play with the stereotypes or vary the number of murders as many times as you want. You can alter the condition of the killer, hide or reveal their identity, make it a killing deformed machine (probably as a result of a relationship of inbreeding), a vengeful woman or even a nightmare demon. You can choose the best heroine, the so-called “Final Girl” (or “the Chosen One”, see Behind The Mask); a character as valuable and immortal as the psychokiller himself. She got a blend of beauty and intelligence and counts with the sympathy of the audience – unlike the rest of stereotypes . So that’s the reason because kill her is always a resounding and immense kick in the balls!
Now, let’s check the qualities that makes Lost After Dark an amazing must-to-seen-movie:
No. 1 – Playing God: Sean, Adrianne, Tobe, Marilyn, Jamie, John, Wes and Heather. All of these names are references which Ian Kessner handles to enjoying us during an hour and twenty minutes of a powerful crappy-slasher so great as the classics. Better that this: Lost After Dark is not just a humorous tribute from those movies that we enjoyed in the 1980s, is precisely this same trump card which supports the foundations of Lost After Dark). The names would come from movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, main references for structuring this clever debut. Kessner made a magnificent combination of all those archetypes used by the “fathers of the slasher” and repeat, with treachery and wonder, the formulas used by those. Fuckin’ brilliant!
No. 2 – My cards are jumbled?! What’s the nature of the game that Kessner is playing? As Jeopardy!, you know the answer before to make the right question… even blindfolded! But it never prevents you to enjoy the experience from beginning to end. Please, pay attention to certain details that makes Lost After Dark so surprising and exciting. Despite being a quite referential film, nothing is said and nothing is made. There is a long way to go. A room for surprise.
No. 3 – A cannibal closet wants to rip off my head! Best of the psychokiller in Lost After Dark is he doesn’t wear a mask, is letal and omnipresent and even dares to say the first line at the beginning of the film. It is not the best history – even the best of its own history -, but dammit, there is so much nostalgia and affection in the character that we love him! However, it is inevitable to not remember savagery of, for example, Victor Crowley in Hatchet, because at the end, and after all, what everybody want to see is the dismemberment of these stupid teenagers. We have already seen it on countless occasions, but it is always great to be able to enjoy it again!
No. 4. – Lost After Dark is harder than a rock. When you googled Lost After Dark in the network, the first thing to read is: “Horror comedy”; and therefore you think that it’s a comedy. Epic fail! It’s not just intended to be funny. Really wants, and indeed really is, a horror movie. Although it seems a joke, taken seriously until its jokes: from the larceny of the bus, passing by the Terminator escape plan, the romance between the fat boy and the girl in leather jacket or the pendant suspiciously found on the farm… Be afraid, because shock and thriller are insured; surprisingly Lost After Dark is much more effective than the 50% of commercial productions of terror looming head by billboards.
No. 5 – Highschool nerds played by real highschool nerds. It’s not really shocking to see a thirty-years-old guy making ridiculous as a teenager in a movie. Paradoxically, you find an innocent and childish cast dressed up with eighties trends and ready to be killed. Despite not being more than clichés, some faces are welcome: a nice scream-queen like Elise Gatien, gorgeous Eve Harlow and a hateful Alexander Carlvert looks perfect in their roles! Not bad!
No. 6 – Those Golden Years. The eighties are blurred in black, veiled frames ane huge red poster illustrated lyrics (see the wonderful poster, perhaps one of the best this year), tore up the wind noise, deaths in chain… one after another. People who step on a trap for bears and rises as if he had just stepped on a cloud. People who jump from the roof of his house and rises as if it had just get off the couch… Such things doesn’t happen on these days. And when it happens (or at least try to), it always runs the risk of falling into the artificial. Lost After Dark search, compulsively, the likelihood of a film of that era (the glorious 80s) and often get it. That’s the reason why Kessner debut worth so much, because it is achieved, and because it is a joy pretty unusual.
No. 7 – The splatter never disappoints you. If something was clear with the aforementioned Hatchet is that gore raises points easy. How much more brutality and more eye-catching are the killings, more to taste remains one seeing as they mangle to kids so heavy and/or unpleasant. Lost After Dark doesn’t reach the extreme exploitation of Hatchet, but flirts with gore and splatter as to approve with note. Effects, artisan, resolute, and without major fanfare, never disappoint you, which is important.
No. 8 – We also want to die quietly. An important aspect of Lost After Dark is the structure. Sometimes feeding the audience continuously can decay in boredom (as happened with the exhausting remake of Friday the 13th), so that I am a strong supporter of the “old school”. I defend the leisurely beginning of the classic slashers for two reasons: because to hunt with stealth is never clear when it is going to explode the bomb, and because when it finally explodes there are enough bait to give 40 frantic minutes of carnage. Good job! In conclusion, I believe that watching Lost After Dark we get a single really important reading: enjoy. Without a doubt, I’ve done it. A highly recommended!