Rest Stop: Don't Look Back

Plot synopsis:
In 1972, the Winnebago family encounters the Driver (Brionne Davis) standing on the side of the road next to the yellow pickup, out of gas. Once in the R.V., Mrs. Winnebago begins to flirt heavily with the Driver, asking Scotty, her physically deformed child, to take a picture with his camera.
Later that night, Mr. Winnebago finds the Driver having sexual intercourse with his wife. His wife then claims she is being raped (which she was not) and prompts her husband to attack, torture, and kill the Driver. The Driver's ghost later kills the family across the street from the rest stop.
35 years later and one year after Jesse and Nicole disappeared. In Argyle, Texas, Jesse's brother Tom (Tillman) returns from Iraq. Tom decides to go looking for his brother with his girlfriend Marilyn (Ward) and one of Nicole's friends, Jared (Norris), who has had a long time crush on Nicole.
Once they get to California, the trio gets direction from a strange gas station attendant (Steve Railsback). Jared finds a horseriding badge that belonged to Nicole, prompting Tom to demand information from the attendant, who tells them that the Old Highway is a mile up the road.
Not long afterwards, Jared stops at a construction site Porta-potty which the Driver rams into, covering Jared in feces causing him to strip down to his briefs. Tom and Marilyn arrive at the rest stop where, while Marilyn is using the bathroom, Tom is kidnapped by the Driver. Inside the bathroom, Marilyn sees Nicole's ghost (Julie Mond), in an adjacent stall. She rushes out of the bathroom to look for Tom, but all signs of him and their truck are vanished.
As night falls, Jared changes clothes (they got covered in feces during the Driver's attack) and as he gets in his car sees Nicole's ghost, which he believes is real. They then have sex during while Nicole vomits blood and disappears. Jared then runs into the road and comes across the Winnebago family, who give him a ride to the rest stop. Jared relays what he knows to Marilyn who, in turn, tells him Tom is missing. They decide to hike back to the gas station to find out everything the attendant knows.
Meanwhile, Tom is being tortured by the Driver in the school bus, but escapes while the Driver is gone. He searches for his brother, finding him tied up in a cage. He frees him and carries him to his truck. Jesse turns to his brother and says "you should have saved me?" before disappearing, leaving Tom confused before heading back to the rest stop.
Marilyn and Jared learn from the attendant that to put the Driver to rest, they need to burn his eyeballs. But the Driver set a trap for them. When Jared awakes, The Driver claims, using the attendant to talk for him, that Marilyn was unfaithful to Tom and needed to be "cleansed". Jared refuses and has his right eye cut out by the Driver. Jared then gives in and uses a drill to "cleanse" Marilyn by drilling into her thighs.
Tom arrives at the gas station to find Marilyn alone. They exit the station, just as day breaks, to find the Winnebago parked outside. Scotty tells them that the twins have the Driver's eyeballs. Tom loads up with an assault rifle he kept in his backseat to take on the Driver. Marilyn finds Jared inside the R.V. with a patch on his eye. He assists her in setting fire to the Winnebago, destroying it. Just before the Driver kills Tom, he disappears as the Winnebago explodes.
On the way home, Jared discovers a picture of Nicole that he kept on his visor is missing. Just as he tries to tell Tom, he smashes into the Winnebago.
Sometime later that day, Tom ponders Jared's disappearance and emotes to Marilyn, who is crying next to him. When Tom asks what is wrong, Marilyn responds, "You should have saved me." Tom begins to ask what she is talking about, only to be interrupted by the Driver revving his engine. Tom looks out the window and into the truck's cab, seeing Marilyn in the passenger's seat next to the Driver. Tom rushes out onto the empty highway and looks around, realizing that Marilyn is dead.
The Driver is then seen driving down a different highway.

Tags: violence

Review:
The corporal Tom Hilts (Richard Tillman) returns from overseas to his hometown Argyle, Texas, for a ten days leave with the intention to seek our his brother Jess (Joey Mendicino), who disappeared one year ago while heading to California with his girl-friend Nicole (Julie Mond).
He drives his truck with his girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) and followed by his friend Jared (Graham Norris) in his old car to California trying to track his brother.
While in the old highway California, Jared needs to stop his car in an old rest stop to go to the toilet and is attacked by the driver of a yellow truck.
Meanwhile Tom and Marilyn wait for him in the next rest stop where Tom is also attacked and kidnapped by the driver of the yellow truck.
Marilyn sees the ghost of Nicole in the restroom and realizes that they are facing supernatural evil forces."Rest Room" had a good premise but the writer did not know how to end the story.
However "Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" is a disappointing mess, with a non-likable lead characters  Tom, Jared and Marilyn  and an invincible sadistic ghost.
The greatest "attraction" of this flick is the sick tortures inflicted by the driver to his victims, removing eyes and drilling knees and legs, with lots of gore and pain.
Sequel That Doesn't Really Accomplish What It Aims To. One year after the disappearance of Jesse and Nicole, Jesse's brother Tom (a corporal in the Army, fresh on leave from Iraq) and two friends are on the trail.
I really enjoyed "Rest Stop" and seeing that the same people -- most of the original cast (Jaime Alexander is noticeably absent), plus John Shiban and Shawn Papazian -- had returned, I figured this one couldn't be too bad.
Both Tom Hilts (Richard Tillman) and his friend Jared (Graham Norris) weren't overly likable, and they came across as awkward.
And for those who liked the first film, this fills in some blanks that may have been lingering in the minds of viewers.Overall, "Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" was not a necessary part of the series and could have gone without being made.
At the same time, the film sets the stage for a "Rest Stop 3", since now there's bound to be questions needing answers for some people.
Two years ago,low-budget film Rest Stop had some success in the DVD market,in spite of telling a completely incoherent story.I found that movie tedious and full of repetitive and irrelevant scenes which revealed director and screenwriter John Shiban's desperation to "inflate" the movie with the porpoise of fulfilling running time and to simulate drama the weak characters could not generate.And now,we have the repulsive and disastrous sequel of that bad film.Rest Stop : Don't Look Back is a crap of enormous proportions.This "film" is a pathetic combination of the style of the Asian horror cinema and the modern torture cinema.For one sight,we have the mysterious villain who tortures young people on an isolated place; we have manifestations from ghosts; and we also have an enormously boring and unbearably slow story which is completely improvised.Instead of provoking horror,this film provokes a big impatience.Plus,the characters from this movie are deeply stupid,so much that I wanted them to get killed.On this crap,we also have terribly bad performances and insipid violence.Rest Stop : Don't Look Back is an unbearable experience.This repulsive piece of crap should immediately be destroyed.Be very far away from it.Don't make the same mistake I did and do not loose the time with this thing..
I enjoyed the first Rest Stop movie- considering it was a straight to video, low budget horror, I felt it was a tense off-the-beaten track film, with some nice, and unexpected, supernatural elements.
Though I'm not claiming it's a horror classic, it was a fun film, and certainly felt like one of the fresher films in this sub-genre of horror, especially when compared to the tired Texas Chainsaw prequel and Hills Have Eyes sequel- both of which were out around the same time.I think the sequel is equally fun- if not more so.
The sequel fleshes out some of the history of the freakish family, we find out what happened to the characters from the last film- all in all, it does what a good sequel is supposed to!
It's a nice feeling when a straight-to-DVD film demonstrates a lot of what is missing in big budget cinematic horror films today- bring on Rest Stop 3!!!.
Direct-to-video torture porn for people who just can't get enough of Rest Stop's killer ghost..
The plot: Searching for his missing brother, a soldier runs into the killer ghost from Rest Stop, with predictable results for him and his friends.Rest Stop 2 follows many of the conventions of the first movie, but manages to excise some of the pointless filler, replacing it with extended scenes of gory torture.
If you were dying to know these things, then I can understand why you'd want to see Rest Stop 2, but there really isn't much reason to subject yourself to this movie, when you can just read the synopsis on Wikipedia or the IMDb.One of the saving graces of the original Rest Stop was its atmosphere and judicial use of gore.
In Rest Stop 2, the gore is pretty much its sole reason for being.
As a result, I would recommend this movie only to fans of Rest Stop, gorehounds, and torture porn enthusiasts.
It's no masterpiece, but the gore effects are pretty good, for a low budget, direct-to-video sequel.
I realize I may be in the minority liking the first, then again the IMDb boards seem to be there only to complain.Rest Stop was a bit of slasher with a ghost story thrown in.
In part 2, it seems like they tried to duplicate those, but after seeing the first one, they didn't have the oh-wow value.The ghost sequences were all pretty obvious (sans one) and the whole Family is a known from the first one so that wasn't a surprise.As for the background they tried to give the people from the first one, while somewhat interesting, it just didn't seem to fit or feel quite right.
Very weird, hard to understand and a lot of problems with it, but it's better than the first, and at least worth a rent.One of my main problems is the characters were annoying, and I often kept wanting to smack Marilyn across the face.But, considering a lot of the straight-to-DVD crap that gets put out, this was an okay film that I actually enjoyed, maybe a little more than I should have....
You would think that given the fact that this movie happens in present day the characters would at least acknowledge.."Hey we are dealing with spooky bad people.
I just feel as though if I spend any more time on it then the "Driver" has claimed too much of my life as well.My rating for this flick....I give it an "A-holes" Means avoid this movie.
They run into the typical creepy gas station guy, they find the rest stop, not before the driver finds them and gives them a hard time.
The girlfriend and the geek start having visions of the girl from part I and the geek will be delivered to the weirdo family which also makes a comeback in this movie.The girlfriend will confront the driver and she will get tortured and later, army guy fights the driver.
Several times we see the weirdo family driving around bothering people with their religious talk.The second half of Rest Stop II is just as dismal as all of the first movie.
This follow up for the original "Rest Stop" is fast paced, entertaining, humorous (Jared taking a crap and being ambushed by a truck by later getting a crap shower!
in the likes of "Slumdog Millonaire" or the having sex with a ghost scene), and gory at some points.The plot twist that worked in the original tries to repeat the success in this sequel but it didn't make an impact at all.The whole explanation towards the legend of death is pretty interesting and gruesome if you take in account the opening murder.
I liked how it kept connected with the events of the original.The "ends here" line was pure gold and gave a darker tone to the movie.Watch it if you're fan of direct to video horror.
The first time I watched Rest Stop, i was like wow, i couldn't believe the amount of violence and carnage in it.
Im just glad that it follows the first one, where a returning soldier Richard Tillman(The Day The Earth Stood Still) and his girlfriend Jessie Ward(Wicked Wicked Games), set out to look for his missing brother Joey Mendicino(Rest Stop) and his girlfriend, and wind up encountering the psychotic fanatical family and the murderous truck driver.
The first Rest Stop is cinema at it's worst, so when the sequel came along, I expected the same thing, horror trying to be art.
Well, to say least, I was a little surprised.The story follows the brother of the man killed in the first part, he decides to go to California to look for his brother and his girlfriend.
Soon, the come upon the rest stop where the two people perished, and soon the same supernatural crap that happened in the first one starts happening to them.First of all, this film actually wallows in the supernatural crap, so it's not annoying or confusing like in the first.
After hearing of the disappearance of the victims at the rest stop, his brother and friends journey out to find him only to come across the same supernaturally-powered killer and must try to put an end to his reign of terror at before others fall victim to his wrath.This here turned out to be a thoroughly uninviting mess, literally filled with lots of different issues that are nowhere near interesting enough to really carry itself out of the mire it utilized previously in the original.
"Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" is a horror movie and is the sequel of the "Rest Stop" movie of 2006 and I think that it was a really worse movie than the first.In this movie we have the brother of Jesse who is looking for him and in his quest he captured from the same maniac serial killer who we have in the first movie.I believe that this sequel it was a disaster and it demolished everything that the first movie built even though there was few.
Saw 'Rest Stop: Don't Look Back', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea.
Despite not caring for the first 'Rest Stop', saw the sequel anyway with curiosity.Giving 'Rest Stop: Don't Look Back' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be a little better than expected with having the same strengths and flaws of the first 'Rest Stop' and being about the same in quality (basically not caring for either).
Won't say that 'Rest Stop: Don't Look Back' is a great film (mediocre actually) because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to.
Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings if not by much.'Rest Stop: Don't Look Back' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.
Admired that it tried to be more than a standard slasher film, the supernatural element does intrigue but that it's open to interpretation so divisively says a lot for things feeling confused and muddled too often.
Instead of doing something different from the first 'Rest Stop', meaning giving some freshness while maintaining the spirit and with chance of improvement, it is too more of the same-like and with even less imagination.Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air and it all felt abrupt.
REST STOP: DON'T LOOK BACK is the sequel to a low budget horror flick I never saw.
After a brief bit of back story, we join up with a trio of characters who venture into a hostile desert landscape in search of some missing people, and who soon find themselves falling foul of a sinister presence with murder in mind.This film does have promise, I'll give it that.
Everywhere else, the story is a mix of torture porn, toilet humour, and random ghost scares which don't make a whole lot of sense when it comes down to it.For the most part, REST STOP: DON'T LOOK BACK sits firmly within unpleasant torture porn territory, as violence is meted out to innocent characters.
But the rest of the plot makes little sense either and you don't really care for the characters anyway.
I love B horror films, they're among m favorite sub-genre, but that being said...Tom, on leave from the Army, goes to find out who killed his sister and her boyfriend (as told in the superior yet merely watchable first Rest Stop film) The original was incredibly clichéd and unoriginal, but it went about its task we'll enough.
I would call this Rest Stop 2: Don't Bother to Look.
I would call this Rest Stop 2: Don't Bother to Look.
The couple ends up at the infamous rest stop, where they battle the restroom ghost and the creepy family of nuts and the school bus.
It was predictable and one thing died throughout the whole movie.The plot started off good and then turned to rubbish.
The amount of plot-holes and unrelated dialog was so stupid and it just made the filming pointless.The acting was surprisingly good, with a believable cast, take 1.
One year after couple Jesse (Joey Mendicino) and Nicole (Julie Mond) disappeared, Jesse's brother, Tom (Richard Tillman), asks his friends (Jessie Ward, Graham Norris) to join him on a search for his brother.
In the first film, an average idea (a couple gets stranded at an isolated rest stop and a crazed killer stalks them down) is ruined by an impossible twist (and you thought Haute Tension's was unbelievable), subpar performances by actors we've seen do better, and a script so contrived my head was pounding in annoyance.
One major thing holds back the sequel before even it even begins: there's not a lot you can do at a rest stop.
Therefore, as Rest Stop: Don't Look Back progressed, it felt kind of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning in comparison to the remake.
Unfortunately, we missed some of the best violence (eye gouging and the like) due to scene cutaways, but I attribute that to a low budget.
The girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) wasn't a good hot chick, she is better described as the average chick, who was so annoying i found myself wishing she'd die a horribly painful and bloody death after the first 20 minutes.
Overall, I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good horror flick..
The story established in "Rest Stop" continues with this movie, in which Richard Tillman plays Tom Hilts, a Corporal returned from Iraq who learns that his younger brother Jesse (Joseph George Mendicino), the protagonist of the first film, has gone missing.
One year after his brother and girlfriend disappeared, Tom (Richard Tillman) and his girlfriend Marilyn (Jessie Ward) decide to go to California to find them.
Tom's geeky friend Jared (Graham Norris) travels with them.The same guy who killed his brother is still haunting the highway, and finds and tortures the new breed of travelers, and also returning is the RV filled with the walking corpses.This movie reminds me of "Joy Ride 2"...another needless sequel with subpar acting, story, and effects.
It has been a year since Jess and Nicole went missing at a rundown rest stop on California's Old Highway.
Jess' brother Tom(Richard Tillman), a soldier back from Iraq and his girlfriend Marilyn(Jessie Ward)and an idiot pal Jared(Graham Norris)go searching for the missing lovers.
OK this is the confusing part how did the bathroom ghost in the first rest stop go missing and got killed in 1971 if the serial killer was killed in 1972?...doesn't even make sense and the dates doesn't match up just confusing.And what was the point of the ghost sex???...and how did eyeballs come into plan like it was a clue in the first movie it really wasn't so what was the point of speaking about eyeballs they never said anything in the first movie about him taking out his victims eyeballs and never seen taking out eyeballs being his mark on victims, so why is it relevant?...this plot is just twisted and changing into something it wasn't in the beginning.All of the things happening has nothing to do with what happened in the first movie and did he forget about his girlfriend and his friend *funny*..but I guess some of the movie was OK..
The Rest Stop Series:Part 2-Don't Look Back..
After finding the first Rest Stop film to be a surprisingly gripping Horror,I was pleased to find out that a sequel had been made,which led to me,once again taking a turn for the rest stop.The plot:Since his brother Jesse and his girlfriend Nicole have been missing for a year, Tom Hilts,his girlfriend Marilyn and Hilts friend Jared decide to go in search for Nicole & Jesse.During their search,Hilts and Marilyn try to sleep in a motel room.
Attempting to build a mythology out of the films,Shiban runs over any tension built in Hilts,Marilyn and Jared's search for the truth,by taking the movie in a dazed and confused supernatural Horror direction,which leads to a left-field ending which completely goes against everything that the film has been building towards.