Lover's Lane

Most of us have ceased to appreciate the golden age of home video we’re now enjoying.  In fact, if an obscure horror movie isn’t presented in blemish-free 4K glory with interviews from cast, crew and an overly excited podcaster, the internet gets its collective knickers in a bunch.  So Lover’s Lane, a tossed-together 1999 slasher sporting an early role for Anna Faris, probably won’t earn it any more accolades or notoriety.  Quite honestly, it might not deserve them.  But it is another sterling example of niche companies over-delivering on the sort of deluxe treatment even fans might not expect. 

The murder of a pair of cheating spouses circles back on their children 13 years later when the maniac held responsible breaks out of the asylum.  Now another generation of teens is threatened by the “The Hook” as he works his way through their gang of cheerleaders, jocks and social misfits.

 

Lover’s Lane is schizophrenically simple-minded and laughably complex.  It takes at least 20 minutes to sort out the family relations involved and the final twist at the end requires some sort of slasher cypher to make sense.  But for most of its running time it’s a cut-and-dry killer on the loose story built around a done-to-death urban legend.  There was probably something reassuring about that in 1999 when Scream inspired filmmakers to deconstruct the formula for superfan amusement.  But even Lover’s Lane concedes to a few flashes of dark humor and unexpected jokes.

 

With a dark and grainy look, director Jon Ward’s film actually looks like it could have sprung from the back room of an ‘80s studio vault.  While the script is fairly uninspired, his actors are less cringey than average and Anna Faris’ quirky personality seems to deserves a bigger spotlight even then (she’d star in the slasher spoof Scary Movie just one year later).  Lover’s Lane might do nothing more than fill a spot on a horror collector’s shelf, but it does so with good intentions.

 

Arrow’s Blu-ray features a brand-new 2K restoration with two different aspect ratios (1.85:1 and full-frame 1.33:1) and illustrated collector’s booklet.  Extras include an audio commentary with writer-producers Geof Miller and Rory Veal who also participate in a 30-minute retrospective, Screaming Teens (clever reference for a film shot in Seattle), to go along with original trailers and publicity images.

 

 

 

  

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