"Once upon a time, a boy named Ray Pye put crushed beer cans in his boots to make himself taller."
Marc Senter (I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, CABIN FEVER 2) gives a dazzling performance as the narcissistic, seriously unhinged Ray Pye in THE LOST (2005), rampaging his way through the film like the demonic offspring of Tom Cruise and a vulture on PCP. His grinning, hyperactive intensity also has an insectlike quality about it as he zeroes in on his present and future victims, augmented by the fact that he wears dark eye makeup to accentuate his sharp, birdlike features, dresses in black rockabilly threads, has a strange, herky-jerky swagger caused by the use of crushed beer cans in his boots to add to his height, and is often accompanied by a buzzing noise on the soundtrack.
Ray lives in a boring little town that is too small to contain his burgeoning madness. With his cowering girlfriend Jennifer (Shay Astar, "3rd Rock from the Sun") and sycophantic toady Tim (Alex Frost) in tow, he's forever on the lookout for things to occupy his self-interest and gratify his immense ego. These things will come to include Sally (Megan Henning), who has just come to work at the motel that his mother owns, and the beautiful, melancholy Katherine (Robin Sydney), who has an ill-advised fling with Ray for lack of any better way to temporarily escape her depressing home life.
THE LOST begins with a flashback to four years earlier, when Ray impulsively murders two girls who are camping by a lake ("Let's pop 'em!" he beams excitedly to a horrified Tim and Jennifer). The act is sudden, senseless, and brutal as bloody bulletholes begin to appear in the unsuspecting Lisa and Elise, who are well-played by familiar soft-porn actresses Erin Brown (aka Misty Mundae) and Ruby Larocca. Though mortally wounded, Elise manages to get away. She lingers on life-support for four years as local homicide detectives Charlie Schilling (Michael Bowen, KILL BILL's "Buck") and Ed Anderson (the great character actor Ed Lauter) doggedly but unsuccessfully struggle to pin the murders on their only suspect, Ray.
This shocking opening will be the only act of violence in THE LOST until the final sequence, but we know that everything that happens in between is leading up to it. His failure to seduce Sally, who is having a secret affair with the much older Ed, his unrequited obsession with Katherine, and his gradual loss of control over Jennifer and Tim all come together to drive Ray closer and closer to the breaking point. When he finally reaches it, all hell breaks loose.
Chris Sivertson's screenplay, based on the novel by Jack Ketchum, is lean and consistently involving, with a forward momentum that never lags. This is also true of his directing skills, as he carefully builds the story to its inevitable conclusion with a visual style that's so smooth it seems almost effortless. His use of different film stocks and other effects is restrained and purposeful, and the often rapid-fire editing is seamless. Sound editing is very effective as well, and the soundtrack is filled with well-chosen songs along with an impressive, offbeat original score by Tim Rutili.
The cast, which also includes Dee Wallace Stone as Elise's mother and author Jack Ketchum in a cameo role, is excellent. You'll get to watch the audition footage of several of the leads in the bonus features, and it's clear why they were chosen for their roles. Several minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes are included as well, along with storyboards of the initial murder sequence and an interesting Easter egg. There's a commentary track with Jack Ketchum and fellow novelist Monica O'Rourke, which is an interesting chat between authors but is rarely scene specific and offers little information about the production itself (where were the cast and crew?) The film is presented in 2:35:1 anamorphic widescreen.
When Ray finally sails all the way off the deep end, going on a killing spree through town and then gathering all the women who have frustrated his will or damaged his ego together in an isolated house as the horrified owners look on, THE LOST becomes a grueling ordeal of madness and terror. Sivertson stages it beautifully but pulls no punches. Deprived of the usual cardboard characters whose bloody demise evokes only excitement and glee, we watch as people we care about are terrorized, executed, and eviscerated by a depraved psycho. Sivertson's direction and editing here are exquisite, the performances riveting. The final moments are so audaciously well-orchestrated that, after the abrupt blackout, it took me several minutes to come down off this movie, as though some barely-averted traffic mishap had left me flush with adrenaline.
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