As a film about a violent psychopath that ends in a killing spree, complete with the implied Manson Family style gutting of a pregnant woman, The Lost is not for the squeamish. Nor, however, is it an exercise in unpleasantness for its own sake. Rather, it's that unfortunately all-too rare example of an extreme film that actually has technique, performances and perhaps even something to say in that "gaze into the abyss" way…
Put another way, it's quite possibly the best example of its kind since River's Edge nearly 20 years ago, although unlike that film it aspires less to be a commentary on a specific time and place as an excursion into more mythical territory in a manner akin to the Virgin Spring inspired Last House on the Left , presenting a strange combination of the contemporary and the 1960s – the latter being the setting for Jack Ketchum's source novel of the same name, in turn inspired by the real-life crimes of (External) Charles Schmid .
Four years ago, Ray Pye shot two young women in the woods. One died and the other was left in a coma, from which she has just died. The police pretty much know that Pye did it, but were unable to produce any evidence, with Pye compelling the two witnesses to the murders, his friends Jen and Tim, to provide him with an alibi.
It's at this point that the film perhaps runs into some difficulties of plausibility that can only be excused, much like Last House's killers arriving at their titular final destination, by reference to its mythic aspirations, as we're asked to believe that Ray has also in the meantime established a drugs business, with a sub-plot that's slightly too arch and Brick -like: You wonder who his clients are, how he's managed to do all this while presumably under police observation and, above all, not been caught, especially when his inability to notice that Tim has been skimming a bit off each shipment suggests someone who's not quite got the right degree of paranoia for the business.
This criticisms aside, what we get for the next 90 or so minutes are the slow building of tension and character, allowing Marc Senter to deliver one of the most compelling and convincing portraits of a psychopath you're ever likely to see, more Krug Stilo or Henry than Hannibal Lektor, and director Chris Sivertson to demonstrate that he has the talent to match his aspirations and is interested less in exploitation than art – most notably with the non-sensationalised and sensitive handling of the relationship between an 18-year-old and the 60-year-old ex-cop – followed by a prolonged bout of painfully realistic mayhem that no-one in their right mind could laugh off.
Strongly violence, strongly recommended.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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