A young woman, Nicole Carrow (Jaimie Alexander), and her boyfriend, Jess (Joey Mendicino) become targets for a deranged serial killer after stopping for a 'comfort break' at a remote road-side rest-stop.
What might have been an effectively scary chiller in more competent hands, turns out to be a confusing, ill-considered mess under the sloppy direction of John Shiban (who also wrote the screenplay). There is a good deal of juicy violence, a brief smattering of nudity, and confident performances from the cast, but the silly script leaves the viewer with so many unanswered questions one cannot help but feel disappointed.
On the surface, the film plays out like a standard cliché-ridden 'killer-on-the-loose' movie, but Shiban (an ex-writer for the X-files) throws in some subtle supernatural elements which suggest that his aim was something else entirely: a ghost story, with the rest stop acting as home to a vengeful spectre out to punish sinners.
By reading up on the film, checking out viewers' theories here on IMDb, and watching the extras on the DVD, certain plot elements begin to make a little more sense (although, even with the advantage of extra information, there are still many questions left unanswered). In my opinion, any film that requires this much investigation to make itself (only partially) understood is not particularly a good one.
What might have been an effectively scary chiller in more competent hands, turns out to be a confusing, ill-considered mess under the sloppy direction of John Shiban (who also wrote the screenplay). There is a good deal of juicy violence, a brief smattering of nudity, and confident performances from the cast, but the silly script leaves the viewer with so many unanswered questions one cannot help but feel disappointed.
On the surface, the film plays out like a standard cliché-ridden 'killer-on-the-loose' movie, but Shiban (an ex-writer for the X-files) throws in some subtle supernatural elements which suggest that his aim was something else entirely: a ghost story, with the rest stop acting as home to a vengeful spectre out to punish sinners.
By reading up on the film, checking out viewers' theories here on IMDb, and watching the extras on the DVD, certain plot elements begin to make a little more sense (although, even with the advantage of extra information, there are still many questions left unanswered). In my opinion, any film that requires this much investigation to make itself (only partially) understood is not particularly a good one.