Lost After Dark

(2015) **

It is 1984 and during a school dance 8 high school friends commandeer a school bus to go to a family friend’s cabin in the woods where they intend to drink and screw. On route the bus breaks down in the middle of the woods and they are forced to seek refuge in an old farm house that has a sordid history. We soon learn that the house used to belong to a family of cannibals who were gunned down by the police. Unbeknownst to the teens, one of the cannibals survived and he’s pissed that they are trespassing. Oh, and he’s hungry.



Lost After Dark is set in the 80s as an homage to the 80s slasher genre. It contains all the goofiness that the 80s had to offer without the fun. I am happy with this recent trend of setting movies in that era (e.g. House of the Devil, We Are Still Here, etc.) but Lost in the Dark gets it a bit too on the nose. Rather than homage the film plays out like every cheap slasher film from that era and there is no attempt at originality. This is a paint-by-numbers ho-hum 80s slasher that you will forget the moment the end credits roll.