Guest Post - Brenda Hineman of Star Costumes reviews "Lover's Lane!"

I'm trying a new thing here at The Moon is a Dead World. Brenda contacted me about doing a guest post on the blog, and after checking out her fantastic site Star Costumes, I gave her the okay. Now, she has delivered with an excellent review of a horror movie I've yet to see, the 1999 B-movie Lover's Lane. Check it out, and please give your support and love to Brenda on her website!

Lover's Lane (1999)

They say every film needs a hook. The makers of Lover's Lane took that advice a little too seriously. This 1999 disasterpiece was a little past it's prime by about 10 years, when the heyday of horror flick heroes with weapons on their hands were the hook du jour.

The Plot: Thirteen years ago (yes, the flashback actually says "13 Years Ago" rather than giving an actual date), a peeping Tom on Lover's Lane used his prosthetic hook to butcher a young couple doing what young couples do on Lover's Lane. Flash forward 13 years, and he's broken out of the mental institution on Valentine's Day to exact his revenge!

Part of the fun in watching older B Horror movies is in seeing what B grade actors are dropping in. Lover's Lane has a couple of good ones, too. First is Richard Sanders, whom you might know better as Les Nessman from WKRP in Cincinnati. In Lover's Lane, he plays a snide know-it-all shrink who works directly with the institutionalized killer. It's hard to take him seriously, though, because he still looks as if he is going to interrupt Dr. Johnny Fever at any minute to bring you the weather. The other notable character plays the daughter of Sanders' character... none other than Sarah Lancaster who has gone on to be a television regular on shows such as Chuck, What About Brian, and Everwood.

A balanced review provides both the highlights and lowlights of a film and, unfortunately, pointing out that Sanders and Lancaster were in this film pretty much wraps up the highlights, unless you happen to be a fan of too-dark scenes, cliche scripting, and poor sound design.

The real downfall of Lover's Lane, however, is in the plot development. As the hooked maniac is on the loose, leaving dead teenagers in his path, we learn more about the relationships that brought about this fateful night. And just like that - spoiler alert - there are THREE character's running around with hooks. What was surely intended to be a brilliant plot twist just left the viewer thinking, "Whoa, wait a minute. So he? Wait? She? Wait? Okay, WTF is going on here?" Leaving the viewer confused 85 minutes into an already poorly developed plot is not a clincher.

The bottom line: You still need to see this movie mainly because misery loves company. Also, you get a reminder that the price of gas, as shown in a shot of a gas station, was below $2 a gallon in 1999. Oh, and some of the haircuts are just old enough to be goofy (in that boy band kind of way), but not cool (in that retro sort of way). Hmmm... looks like I remembered some more highlights.

One star.

Trailer:





Brenda Hineman is a B Movie fanatic who also writes about Costumes for Halloween at StarCostumes.com.