Why Wasn't "Lost After Dark" Left On The Cutting Room Floor???????????????

                              I will admit the poster is interesting, but I am truly amazed there are some viewers out there who thought "Lost After Dark" was a brilliant homage to the Eighties.  True, as one watches it, bits and pieces of "Prom Night," "Friday The 13th," and the like flash through it, but no one in this film is as brilliant as some of the actors who were in the aforementioned.

                                The film does have an interesting premise. You see, back in 1977, in Michigan, a girl named Laurie, a belated hippie, ran away from home. She ended up at the home of the Joad Family, (no relation to the Steinbeck "Grapes Of Wrath" clan) headed by Emmett Joad.  The entire family were a psychopathic, sadistic, and predatory bunch of cannibals who entrapped victims, feasted on their flesh and kept tokens of them as souvenirs.  Laurie was one of those victims, and seven years later, in 1984, when Laurie's sister, Adrienne, turns up at the Joad residence--while on a social excursion--she discovers the peace amulet she had given Laurie years before--then herself falls victim to the clan's survivor, Junior Joad. The rest of the family had been dispatched by the sheriff and his gang, as the victims began to pile up over the years, and law officers caught on to what the Joads were doing.

                                 Now, there really is nothing interesting about Junior Joad.  He resembles a grossly obese Charles Manson, crossed with Rasputin.  He lacks the distinction of either. He is simply a killing machine, and the whole thing is watching him cut, slice, and dice.  Just like a food processor.

                                    The celluloid should have shredded into scrap, because this is a piece of crap. That is, if it had been captured on celluloid.  I have a feeling this never had a theatrical release, and for good reason, so it just wound up in discarded DVD bins.  Much worse than the Island Of Misfit Toys!!!!!!! If the story had focused on the history of the Joad family, now THAT might have been interesting. Hell, I would have loved to play one of the Joads myself.

                                      But this thing gets consigned to whatever Hell bad movies go to.

                                       Still, it would make for a great musical.  How about "Jumping Junior Joad?"