The Lost

The Lost (2006)

US (dir. Chris Sivertson)

Cast:  Marc Senter, Shay Astar, Alex Frost, Megan Henning, Robin Sydney, Misty Mundae, Ruby Larocca, Michael Bowen, Dee Wallace, Ed Lauter

Synopsis:  Hanging out at some campgrounds one nice summer day, 19-year-old Ray Pye decides to murder two young women. His friends, Jen and Tim, witness the murder and help him cover it up. Four years later, Ray has never been arrested for the crime. Detective Charlie Schilling and his ex-partner, Ed Anderson, know that Ray did it. They just could never prove it. Charlie figures it’s about time they did prove it. He’s ready to push Ray harder than ever. Meanwhile, Ray has met his match in a new girl in town. Her name’s Katherine Wallace. Kath is a bad girl. Her and Ray are a potentially explosive combination. Throw in the fact that Ed is having a summer fling with Sally Richmond – a girl young enough to be his daughter. And Sally’s just gotten a job at the motel that Ray manages. Ray has his eye on her. Charlie and Ed never found the gun that Ray used to murder the women at the campground. That rifle, as well as a handgun, are hidden behind the mirror in Ray’s bathroom. Ray can only be pushed so far. The time will come when he takes the mirror off the wall and shows everyone who is in charge.

Review:  DVD Special Features Review (September 2010)

My DVD of “The Lost” signed by author… ahem, ahem, ahem… Jack Ketchum seems like it has some pretty neat features attached to it, however sadly there’s nothing really special about them at all.  There is a storyboard sequence, audition footage, outtakes, and audio commentary with Jack Ketchum (yay!) and… Monica O’Rourke (yeah, ‘who?’ is a pretty good response right about now).

The storyboard sequence consists of the complete storyboard for the first scene of the movie.  There’s no feature where you can scroll through the sequence at your own pace, it just plays at its own pace set to music.  It’s hardly an essential or interesting special feature.  The audition footage is essentially meh as well.  It basically consists of Robin Sydney and Marc Senter going through their lines in an audition room.  There is also footage of the auditions given by the actresses who play Jennifer and Sally, but they aren’t in the least bit interesting.  The auditions are randomly inter-spliced with footage of a fat man wolfing down what appears to be a mango or a lemon or something… so, uh, yeah… there’s also that.

A lengthy outtakes feature captures a few bloopers, but the majority of it appears to be the actors/actresses improvising their lines or engaging in exchanges of dialogue that were excised from the film in the end.  Most of it doesn’t look like outtakes at all, and the whole feature feels more like a making of or behind-the-scenes feature than an outtake reel.  If this is what they considered to be outtakes, than the director really had a talented set of actors/actresses at his disposal.

The commentary with Jack Ketchum and some random horror novelist named Monica O’Rourke proves to be the weakest feature.  For about 90% of the time, they talk about anything but what is going on in the film.  They also tend to speculate, or guess, why certain things appear in the film as they do, or think up possibilities regarding what the actors/directors/crew went through to film a scene.  Sorry, but shouldn’t someone a bit more knowledgeable about the movie’s actual filming process be providing a commentary on the film?  Jack Ketchum had minimal input in the film and Monica O’Rourke sounds as though she is watching the movie for the first time.  Her input is at times stupid, and even inane: “notice the blue light in this scene…” Okay, sure… but who are you to comment on why the director added it to the scene, especially when it sounds like you really don’t know what you’re talking about?  She also forgets things Jack mentions like 15 minutes earlier, so she ends up going through the same conversation twice on occasion or she’ll just end every goddamn debate by agreeing with whatever Jack Ketchum it is saying, even though she takes a completely opposite view on something.  Kiss ass much, lady?  At times she was really getting on my nerves, and during long stretches of her leading a conversation that had nothing to do with what was going on in the film, I seriously considered turning the damn commentary off.  Why did no one but Jack Ketchum and Monica O’Rourke provide commentary?  Not one actor/actresses, crew member, or even the fucking director is on the commentary track.  Why?  I understand why having Jack Ketchum’s commentary would be ideal, but why not couple him with someone with some actual direct involvement with the film?  I’m sure it would have made for a far better discussion than the Ketchum-O’Rourke conversation.  Sadly, the “special” features on this DVD were hardly worth the extra bucks.

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