Product Details

• Actors: Jaimie Alexander, Joey Lawrence, Joey Mendicino
• Directors: John Shiban
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: October 17, 2006
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000H2M2RA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,037 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Rest Stop: Dead Ahead" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Considering that Rest Stop comes courtesy director John Shiban, an X-Files and Star Trek staff writer, one would expect this horror film to contain a kernel of originality, but unfortunately it is a poor conflation of Wolf Creek, Joyride, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, among others. Nicole Carrow (Jaimie Alexander) and Jess Hilts (Joey Mendocino) are young, hopeful actors taking a road trip to Hollywood, though neither reaches their final destination. A psychotic pick-up truck driver dominates the rest stop they pull off at, often maiming his victims by hitting them with his truck, then dragging them off onto a school bus where he tortures them with drills, pincers, saws, branding irons, knives, and other tools. Jess disappears early in the film, leaving Nicole to fend for herself, often by locking herself in the dingy rest stop restroom, or by running to avoid being hit by the truck. After her attempt to call a sheriff ends in the sheriff's death, Nicole's prospects for survival dim. Graphic scenes are indeed horribly disgusting, but the torture methods are so clichéd that one wishes for more psychology behind the killer's methods to actually scare. A random scene in which Nicole hitches a ride in a motorhome with some Bible-thumping freaks further pushes the film into clichéd territory. Since Rest Stop fails to fully develop the killer or the victims' characters, it is difficult to empathize with them. Even Nicole, rendered powerless from the outset, lacks the personality to entertain through this full-length feature in which so little happens besides hunt-kill, hunt-kill. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

Jess is at the wheel. Nicole rides shotgun. And at the end of the road stretching before them is glittering, glamorous Hollywood. They're on a road trip, all right...straight to hell. When the runaway lovers pause at an abandoned rest stop, Jess disappears. And someone else appears - someone with his own demented sense of fun. With drills. Staple guns. Box cutters. All the tearing, grinding, ripping tools you need to hew wood. Or metal. Or people. Especially young, pretty people just like Nicole. Raw fear rules in Rest Stop, the first film from Raw Feed, the newest brand name in horror, sci-fi and thrillers. Director John Shiban, writer and executive producer of The X-Files and Supernatural, keeps the terrors and twists coming, each out-shocking the last. Stop. Stay awhile. But don't expect to rest.

DVD Features:
Alternate endings
Featurette
Photo gallery
Theatrical Trailer

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Fast-Forward Time January 12, 2007

By Jason72

Format:DVD

I like horror, no, I love horror. My vast collection is comprised of 98% horror, a good deal of them are low budget schlockfests. Old films, films with no budget, etc. They have an excuse for being bad, and thus, are "so bad theyre good".

This film has no excuse whatsoever for being as bad as it is, except for an idiotic script and director. This film had the money, the technology, the time, and the eye-candy to be good. It's a simple premise for a film, nigh impossible to screw up. "Rest Stop" is one big screw up.

It's expected that when a movie begins with a road trip, there will be an almost mandatory music video montage. Acoustic guitar will play, scenes of the happy travelers cruising along in their car past farms, cities, etc. will play out. They will fumble with the radio and make silly faces, smoke dope, laugh etc. The director chose to up that count a bit, and as a result several times in this film the viewer is sitting around watching what is effect a meaningless music video.

The girl picks up a bottle of whisky and starts pugging away, and thus begins the next full-song, music video showcase. Shots of her swigging, crying, throwing things, etc, to the sound of the music.

Fast-Forward time, several times this happens.

Long, drawn out sequences of characters crying, sappy music blaring, for what seems like an eternity. Everything in this movie is drawn out far longer than it needs to be, hence the title of my review. I ended up just fast-forwarding 5 minutes of what needed to be a one or two minute scene. We get it, the character is sad, they are crying. Move on.

Fast-Forward

Now horror movie protagonists are not known for their intelligence, we all know this, but when the viewer is absolutely flogged with idiocy it's very hard to play dumb ourselves.

- near-dead policeman lays at your feet, victim of the killer. The killer is ambling around like a drunken fool before you. Do you grab the policeman's gun? Do you perhaps grab the policemans radio? Not this idiot.

- The killer's vehicle is before you, empty with keys inside. Do you jump in and flee? Not this idiot.

- You have a deranged lunatic on your trail. You find a bottle of whiskey. Do you get so plowed that you finally pass out? This idiot chose to do so.

Im sorry, there's just no excuse for the sheer stupidity of the central character of this film, other than a reason to draw the film out. Like the aforementioned 5+ minute long scenes of crying and shaking her fists at the sky, the entire movie itself should have been boiled down, cut in half. The lead character is a stupid, whiny poltroon that had no right to survive the ordeal as long as she did. The killer, an incompetent moron.

And the stupid, almost randomly inserted "wacky backwoods family" was an utterly lame attempt to portray something like a Texas Chainsaw type backwoods brood. Unfortunately, they have none of the realistic panache that makes the aforementioned hicks from hell so memorable. There's some ok gore, but I can say without a doubt that it isnt worth sitting thru the rest of this absolutely tedious film. Thank God I only rented it

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Just plain bad November 17, 2006

By N. Durham HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

I didn't expect much out of Rest Stop, and I was right to. Not only does Rest Stop follow many of the cliche slasher formulas, it features one of the dumbest heroines to ever grace a direct to DVD horror movie, who for some reason seems to keep running back to the place where all the terror started. Said girl makes the mistake of using an ungodly dirty rest stop to do her business, and then gets chased by an insane trucker who apparently has some sort of supernatural powers. Later on, she hitches a ride with a family that has a mutant baby. And just when you think the unintentional comedy stops there, Joey Lawrence (don't give me Joseph Lawrence, your forever known as Joey, deal with it or dance away) stops by as an ill-fated park ranger. There's a heaping amount of decent gore effects, but the sheer stupidity of the characters just makes you scratch your head and wonder. Had Rest Stop not taken itself so seriously and had instead gone the horror/tongue-in-cheek route (a la Slither), maybe this wouldn't have been so bad. But alas, this is best to be avoided, or maybe seen so that you can have a good laugh.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Tinkle Tantrums October 18, 2006

By Henry Erlenwein

Format:DVD

They say the Direct-to-DVD movie is coming of age. Where it once was a dumping ground for low budget losers and deceiving imitations it has supposedly achieved a more resonant form of quality. That's what they say.

John Shiban cut his entree into film as writer-producer of the X Files. You may remember his newborn son cast as baby William in a few episodes.

In Rest Stop Mr. Shiban has an unflinching desire to continuously display the atrocities in a filthy and disgustingly dirty ladies room. The fact that the lady in question prefers this to a short jaunt in the woods is ridiculous. No woman would be caught dead or even think of entering this place. Enough already.

This is a sick slasher sort of film that portrays brutality and violence but retrieves nothing for the viewer. The one star is for Jaimie Alexander who is obviously a fine actress trying to work her craft in a poor production.

This is pure junk. The three alternate endings are junk.

Mr. Shiban should return to his roots and try again.