I'm not going to mince words when I tell you that I absolutely, positively, despised the first Rest Stop movie. As the launch title for Warner Brothers' direct-to-DVD genre company, Raw Feed, it was a messy amalgamation of various horror films with a complete lack of cohesiveness, torture set pieces meant to disgust that didn't, and a general feeling that writer-director John Shiban had no idea how to craft an effective genre movie. Well, I suppose the original did well enough upon release because here we are, two years later, and I've just witnessed Rest Stop: Don't Look Back.

Shiban has given up the directing reigns to Shawn Papazian and instead just written the script this time out. Considering that I thought the first movie was one of the poorest written horror films in quite some time, I can't say I was expecting an improvement. Deciding to take a more linear approach this time out, and trying to give us some explanation for characters that appeared in the original, Shiban has penned a sequel that works better than anticipated. That still doesn't mean that the entire movie doesn't buckle under the weight of its ambition to be a ghost-infused slasher flick and it hits its peak of nadir in the dumb final third and its miserably bad finish.

Things start off in 1972 where we're re-introduced to the bizarre religious family who've been cruising the highways in their Winnebago picking up hitchhikers and subjecting them to their twisted ideals. Turns out they've given a ride to the wrong person, as their intended victim is just as nutty as them and, after they've done their deeds with him, they end-up getting back what they deserve at his hands. I actually liked this kick-off, because it gave characters with no purpose in the first some form of back story and shows us how our pick-up driving baddie came to be, even if when they arrive later in the movie it just manages to make things sputter and throws it back in the junky supernatural territory of the original.

Flash forward to thirty-five years later. Tommy (Richard Tillman) has just arrived home on leave from the Military and decides to set out during his time off to try and track down his brother who, along with his girlfriend, was an early victim of our killer. In tow are Tommy's girl, Marilyn (Jessie Ward) and his wisecracking nerdy friend Jared (Graham Norris). They set out to California looking for the "Old Highway" which is the last place they were heard from alive. Along the way they run into a wacky gas station attendant (Steve Railsback, merely adding another 'eccentric nut job' role to his resume) who talks a bunch of gibberish about where Tommy's brother is and how they're in trouble.

Not long afterwards, Jared (a character Shiban has relegated to the purpose of comic relief, even resorting to fart jokes) finds himself separated from his friends and stops to use an outhouse. A hand grabs him when he reaches down to pick up something he's dropped, which doesn't even phase him or have any reason for being apart from an attempt by Papazian for a cheap "shock" moment, and he's soon being menaced by our truck driving baddie. Tommy and Marilyn end-up at the rest stop seen in the earlier flick and while she starts having visions of their dead friend, Tommy gets kidnapped by our killer and taken back to his "bus".

From here Shiban throws in some gore moments (which really offer nothing), has characters wandering around like dumbasses, and makes Jared and Marilyn team-up to take on our killer while our motor home of spirits and Railsback's character pop-up to offer mumbo jumbo about Indian legends and eyeballs. There's also a forced torture moment in the finale, meant to disturb, that angers and one of the dumbest methods used to dispatch of a killer I've ever seen.

While it doesn't feel as slipshod as the first, Rest Stop: Don't Look Back is pretty much more of the same. It does feel more cohesive and I wasn't as annoyed by the characters this time out since they didn't do nearly as many stupid things (even if Ward's "tough girl" act in the last third was pretty weak) but it's still another direct-to-DVD stinker that's more insulting to its target audience than respectful.

Review based on uncut version. (Chris Hartley, 10/7/08)

Directed By: Shawn Papazian.
Written By: John Shiban.

Starring: Richard Tillman, Jessie Ward, Graham Norris, Joey Mendicino.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Even considering that this is a low-budget effort the transfer here is a mixed bag. It generally looks alright though I noticed quite a fair amount of specks scattered throughout and it gets quite grainy in the finale. Oddly, the first movie looked better.

Extras: We get a trailer (and trailers for other Raw Feed releases), 4 deleted scenes mostly involving our motorhome dwellers, a pretty weak alternate ending, a making of featurette entitled "Doomed to Repeat: The Mythology of Rest Stop" which gives the movie more credit than it deserves, and a commentary track by Papazian and Shiban that's breezy enough but didn't inspire me to watch a movie I disliked one more time.