In my world, I make it an annual event to watch all the 80s horror I own
on home media, usually watching a handful during the summer and a boatload when
fall comes around. I’m also constantly
trying to find any gems I might have missed during those days of gory
wonderment. Sometimes I’m successful,
discovering a few like Chopping Mall or
Night of the Creeps, but sometimes
they fall flat like when I’d tried out The
Ripper (avoid that one at all costs) or The
Boogens. I’m starting to think I’ve
seen them all…but I’ll keep chasing that dragon.
So the film, Lost After Dark, had come up in an
internet review and I’d liked what I’d read as it referred to it as being the
best 80s horror film not made in the 80s.
So, of course, that instantly had me set my sights on that movie and
I'd patiently waited until it arrived on home media (I don’t think it had a
theatrical run in my town).
Directed and written by Ian Kessner (as well as co-written
by Bo Ransdell), a simple slasher movie was made, seemingly with ease and pays
respectful homage to the days of yore…or is it gore?

Going into this movie, the one expectation that was
constantly in my head was if the look of the film—being set in the 80s—would be
believable. I mean, if you’re going to
try and sell this film as being period-correct, then I better believe that I’m
watching a movie from that era. And…I did…most
of the time. The teens wore the correct
outfits, had the hairstyles down, and had a somewhat good grasp of the
lingo…so, yeah, it was credible. If
there was anything I could pick on was the wig Stephan James wore…it was
clearly a wig and not a very good one.
Living in that time, I had my share of friends who decided to go with
the Jheri Curl look, but this was a sad representation of it. The filmmakers should’ve consulted with the
filmmakers of Straight Out of Compton to
get this aspect of the movie correct.
One might wonder, Why
set a movie during that era? Why not have it
take place in present day? And I
have to admit, I was kind of in that same mindset, but I came up with one
answer that really seems obvious once it’s said out loud—cell phones. Back in the decade of 1980 through 1989,
there were no cell phones. Oh, maybe
some douche bag had a car phone where it was mounted in the vehicle, but there
were maybe a handful of people who had any type of portable phone. I say handful, because my buddy, Ron, was one
of the first people I knew who had one...and that was sometime in the late 80s.
And I say portable, because, technically, it was portable. It consisted
of a large box that held a huge battery, similar to one you’d find in a small
car, which had a strap so you could sling it on your shoulder to carry it
around. The receiver was attached by its
cord and the whole thing looks pretty ridiculous if you would see it
today. But the number of times I’d seen
anyone with one of those contraptions in movies during the 1980s? I'd say less than one. So having this being set in that time period
automatically gives them a pass as to not have a way to get help when they
break down in the middle of nowhere—there’s nothing I hate more than the use
of the “no cell service out here” or "my phone's battery is dead" excuses in a movie.

All in all, I feel the filmmakers went so far as to make
sure the feel of the film was that of an 80s flick, but they failed to give us
an entertaining enough story to match.
It’s a run-of-the-mill tale you’d find in most horror flicks of
yesteryear, and that’s not really a horrible thing, but maybe they should’ve
added a twist to it or give it a more refreshing take. It just fell a little flat with me—not saying
I completely hated it, but it’s something I probably would never see
again. And I really hate to give it such
a low rating because I really hope some other filmmakers will keep trying to
revive the style of the horror films of the 80s and give us something
spectacular.
I’ll say this for Lost After Dark (and, mind you, this
is sort of a spoiler), they had me fooled in who I’d thought was going to be
the final survivor of the story.
Usually, horror movies—even today’s films—telegraph who the survivor is
going to be right from the beginning, setting them up as being the hero who
will stand up to the maniac and get the better of them at the end. Not this one…and it was kind of a shock.
With all that said, here’s my final “bit” on Lost
After Dark.

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