Horror Film Friday: The Lost

Today I'm featuring a film that was based on a book based on a true story and written by the great Jack Ketchum. Sadly, the movie was not so great but thems are the breaks.

The Lost (DVD Release March 2008)

Once upon a time, a boy named Ray Pye put crushed beer cans in his boots to make himself taller. But this is no fairy tale: For suburban sociopath Ray (Marc Senter) and his friends, small-town life is a dead-end road of sex, drugs, liars and losers. And what begins with a sudden act of senseless violence will climax in a mind-blowing frenzy of depravity…with the worst still yet to come. Michael Bowen (Kill Bill), Dee Wallace-Stone (The Hills Have Eyes), Ed Lauter (True Romance), Megan Henning (Seventh Heaven), Katie Cassidy (Black Christmas) and Erin Brown (aka Misty Mundae) co-star in this controversial shocker adapted from the infamous novel by Jack Ketchum and based on the true story that stunned America.

I'm giving this film a 2 out of 5, here's why:

I haven’t yet read the Ketchum novel this movie is based upon called The Lost. I’m not so sure I want to now . . .

Teen Ray Pye and his two friends are hanging out in the woods when Pye nearly collides with a naked beauty coming out of the outhouse. He gets all hyper and worked up and spies on her. After seeing her share a tender moment with another naked beauty, he decides it’s his duty to shoot them dead because them “lezzies” (his words, NOT mine) don’t deserve to breathe the same air as him, I guess. I’m also guessing he’s a bit sexually messed up. Wouldn’t most guys at least snoop around to watch?! Not this one . . .

Fast forward 4 years. Pye is a little older, more unhinged and still a big offender of the guyliner. He somehow managed to get away with murder but the officer on the case knows Pye did it and is keeping an eye on him.

I don’t understand how four years managed to pass without Pye getting the desire to kill again, seeing how impulsive he was with the first murder spree. But you just gotta go with the flow. So, as what seems like hours of my life pass me by, I’m forced to view Pye manipulate his pals, trash a house, hump any breathing woman who looks his way (and for some bizarre reason, many of them do - the pickin’s must’ve been slim in that town), put drugs up his powdered nose, hang out at an amusement park (I kid you not, wish I were but ‘tis true) and generally act like a nasty little spoiled boy-man. There are also some side plots with a retired officer and his May-December relationship with a teen, etc and so on. It’s all pretty boring, if you ask me. This movie is too long. Most of the entire middle could’ve been cut and I wouldn’t have missed it.

After an eternity passes and my hair turns gray, things finally pick up AT THE VERY END. Pye, you see, has fallen in love with a bad girl and suddenly he feels like all of his “girls” have turned against him and exacts his revenge in a nasty bit of work at the end. The actor who plays Pye really hams it up here and it amused me. He’s rage-filled and yes, almost terrifying when he lets his inner demon out.

In the end, it’s an uneven film filled with shocks and tension only at the very beginning and the very end. But the middle. Ugh, the saggy middle. It’s bloated with a whole lot of nothing. It’s basically one long series of “a day in the life of an overly made-up, whiny, boring man-child who flies into fits of rage whenever life doesn’t go his way”. Boo hoo, baby boy. Life stinks, wash your face and get over it.

If this sounds like fun to you, give it a go. This one wasn’t for me.

You can buy it @ Amazon but don't blame me if you do.