Jack Ketchum's The Lost

With slicked back hair, eye make-up, leather pants, jacket and boots (with crushed cans in them to make him look taller), Ray Pye is pure psycho. The Lost opens with a shot following Ray walking towards an outhouse, close up on his boots and affected walk until a naked girl steps out, not expecting anyone to be around. She walks away and Ray follows her. Once he knows where she and her (also naked) friend are camping, he goes to fetch his friends to join him in watching them from afar. Come nightfall, Ray becomes convinced that they’re lesbians and figures it’s the perfect time for him to see what it feels like to "pop” someone. Ignoring his friends’ pleas to not do anything stupid, Ray shoots both girls with his hunting rifle. One of the girls, even with a bullet through her head, escapes somehow, in the process ruining what Ray thought would be an easy thing to get away with. Flash forward four years to a detective who’s been trying to find the killer, having just found out that the girl, after years of life-supported living, has died. Having suspected Ray from the very start, he spends the rest of the film trying to finally find the evidence he needs to put him away while Ray goes about his routine of sex, drugs and temper tantrums, and then when things start to fall apart, he goes on a killing spree. At two hours and with a very thin plot, The Lost could have done with some trimming, but it’s still a very watchable independent horror flick that does a lot more right than wrong. Marc Senter and the rest of the cast are above average, and writer/producer/director Chris Silverston injects a lot of effective style into the film. Extras include a commentary with The Lost author Jack Ketchum and fellow horror writer Monica O’Rourke, where they discuss the origins of the film and the other Ketchum adaptations, among other things. Sixteen minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes, including a cameo by Lucky McKee as a convenience store employee stunned by an eyeful of breasts, are also present, along with audition footage and storyboards for the opening sequence.