Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (Blu-ray/Warner Home Video)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: C     Film: C

 

 

Going slightly out of order, we have already covered the sequel film here in this review:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7613/Rest+Stop:+Do

 

 

We now go back to 2006 with the first film, which heavily draws inspiration from yet another film that has been remade, that being George Sluizer’s The Vanishing, which was originally a Dutch film from 1988 that Sluizer himself remade for American audiences a few years later, but was far more Americanized and I don’t just mean the language track. 

 

Warner Brothers is now issuing Rest Stop: Dead Ahead for the Blu-ray format and while it is a bit better than it’s follow up film, it still fails to impress as it unfortunately follows the same recipe of so many tired and dreadful horror films that are getting pumped out these days at a vicious rate.  Instead of being a thriller of a film, it turns into a typical torture-porn film with all the typical tricks of late, which have been used and overused in other films like the Saw franchise and Hostel, among many others.  The films offer nothing original and just re-engineer the same premise with new ways of torture and gore, which offers little payoff in the end.

 

Presented in a 1.78 X 1 transfer in 1080p High Definition Rest Stop, like it’s follow up film, has a rather bleak presentation that is somewhat uncharacteristic of Blu-ray.  The image looks softer than most films we have reviewed and only demonstrates average color depth and resolution.  Even the Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1 mix is a bit on the weaker side and while there are a few moments where the mix becomes highly engaged, there is little innovation here and this particular mix, despite being faithful, shows just that.  It’s likely that the poor performance has more to do with the films production than it does this particular Blu-ray and I am sure Warner is aware of that. 

 

This version is the slightly longer and uncut version of the film, which offers three different endings to the film, plus a few other little extras, but nothing super special and it’s evident that little effort needed to be put into a film that is this sub-par.

 

 

-   Nate Goss