Review of Rest Stop 2: Never Look Back

In an earlier article I brought you the review of Rest Stop, a horror movie so full of cliché, bad acting and stupidity that it makes Mansquito look like Hamlet. Always a glutton for punishment, I am now brining you the review of Rest Stop 2: Never Look Back, a movie which makes its terrible predecessor look almost decent.

This movie starts out with a quick prologue in which it shows a short history of the truck driver and the zealous Winnebago family from the first movie, I don't want to spoil too much but pretty much they kill each other and come back from the dead to work together. The movie itself begins with Tom (Brother to Jesse, the leading man in the first film) returning home from military leave and mounting a search for his missing brother Jesse and his girlfriend Nicole, who were the victims of the first movie. Coming with him are his best friend, Jared, and his girlfriend Marilyn, who acts pretty much exactly as Nicole did in the first film, making the same obvious mistakes.

The trio set out on their way from Texas to California where they suspect their loved one's went, and of course end up on the 'Old Highway' directed their by the same creepy gas station attendant that appears not only in Rest Stop but is a cliché in just about any horror movie made in the last ten years (The Hill's Have Eyes and Wrong Turn movies are good examples).

Their trek leads them into the path of the deranged (and this time undead) trucker from the last film. In similar fashion to the first movie the Trucker spies on Tom and Marilyn having sex and surprises them by playing gospel music really loud before driving off, I'm not sure about you, but gospel has never really been high on my list of fears.

Anyway, this movie follows the last in almost everyway; it is full of clichés and predictable action/gore. The only real difference from the first film is that in this movie they take the supernatural overtones from the first and make it a full blown ghost story. Unlike a well done supernatural horror movie like White Noise or even Nightmare on Elm Street the supernatural elements of this movie seem no more than an excuse for the writers and director to do pretty much whatever the hell they felt like. People would appear and disappear randomly and be completely solid one minute than gone the next. In many scenes people would be shot or even blown up and would show pain as if the wounds hurt them, then would be right back up, in a different spot, later.

Another way the supernatural element failed is that they really couldn't decide what kind of supernatural powers were at work. Was it some kind of divine power? Indian curses or just plain oogly boogly monsters? Worst of all was the fact that the main characters did everything they were supposed to and defeated the villains in the way they were told to, and it still didn't work! Invincible villains are boring, granted the bad guys should be tough but what's the point of having a villain who can't be stopped? If their unstoppable and the heroes have no chance to win then the movie is pretty much worthless because the heroes have no reason to try.

Well, since I have summed up the terrible plot and the holes within it, let's look at the even worse acting and cliché characters. Tom is your basic gung ho; shoot everything you see military type. He brings along an assault riffle and several pistols for a road trip. He does prove his toughness though as just a few hours after having his knee cap drilled into several times he is hardly even limping, so maybe he has some kind of healing powers to compliment the outrageous supernatural elements of the film then.

Jared is the classic comic foil sidekick, driving around in an old beat up car that keeps breaking down. He's along for the trip because he has always loved Nicole, even though she's his best friend's younger brother's girlfriend (kind of weird, almost pedophile kind of thing) his sole purpose in the film seems to be making scary things seem funny. He gets abused in a portable bathroom and covered in crap (an obvious analogy to the movie itself!), has sex with a ghost who vomits blood on him and eventually does the only good thing of the whole movie and tortures the main female! A useless character that slows the plot, insults intelligence and should have been left out, or at least given a stronger motivation for being involved.

Finally on the hero side we have Marilyn, a blonde bimbo who is identical in personality to Nicole. She is a horror movie cliché all the way through; she gets nude early on, is a whiney bimbo who insults everyone and everything she sees and in the end turns from a helpless, bitchy woman into Rambo with no training or ability but is suddenly able to fire a pistol like a pro. Why does every horror movie these days need to have a stupid woman who turns from weak to macho? I'm not saying women can't be just as tough and strong as men but why not ever have a strong male lead save the day?

As far as villains go we have the same predictable clichés on their side too. We have a silent, stoic maniac/ghost-zombie-undead-kind-of-guy that drives around in a yellow truck and terrorizes people he thinks 'deserves it' and we have an overly religious, crazy family that drives around in an RV. The weird family was perhaps the most entertaining part of the movie as the creepy twins and the deformed midget children make for some comical entertainment. The directors offer no real reason for the driver and the family, who kill each other in the movie's prologue, to work together. They also don't decide if they are undead because of punishment from God for being so evil about the bible or because of an Indian curse, either way they should just stay dead to save us all from a sequel.

In the end, Rest Stop 2 takes is an even worse sequel to a movie that was terrible to begin with. It is not worth renting unless you truly wish to be tortured by the movie. Anyone who sits through the movie deserves a purple heart.