Lovers Lane (2000) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Thirteen years after a couple is murdered at a local lovers lane, the killer escapes from a mental institution to continue where he left off.

Review: While Valentine's Day may be over, I had wanted to cover this film but failed to get around to it. I think this is the last V-day themed horror movie out there, but I could be wrong in this regard. Anyway, this movie is lame as fuck. I remember sleeping over at my friend's house when his mom bought this trash for us to watch. The plot is nothing more than a noticeable fusion of  "Halloween," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and "Scream." This makes sense when you consider the year it was made and how many films wanted to ripoff "Scream." However, unlike those three films, this movie is told in as an incompetent manner as possible. To give you an idea of how pathetic things are, this movie advertises on the DVD that it has Anna Faris in it. Uhh...I didn't think she was that big of a star worth mentioning but okay. Besides, does she really want people to see this bit role where she dies by having a hook shoved up her cootch?!

I don't know if it was my DVD or what, but the audio quality is absolute shit; it's as if every character is whispering half their lines. The VHS version sounded better. As for the story, it's a total mess and overly convoluted. Apparently the real killer is some psychiatrist who was in love with a cop's wife. Somehow this confession of love to the wife was screwed up by some guy--resulting in the psychiatrist killing the wife and the other dude. The psychiatrist then blames it on a known weirdo who had been hanging around the local lovers lane. This plan also relied on the weirdo not blabbing about the psychiatrist being the killer and something with the weirdo having a hook hand. Ehh...whatever. In the present, the psychiatrist realizes that the daughter of that wife he loved, who is the main character, is starting to look like her mom. This magically triggers a crazy killing spree to...uhhh...win her over...I guess. I don't fucking know! It's also conveniently Valentine's Day when this is all going down. Complicating the situation further is the psychiatrist's own daughter who helps her dad in the killings as his partner. Oh good grief. It would seem her motive is that she just likes killing or something, and she's mad her boyfriend dumped her. They even pull the killer pretending to get killed off trick! As if this scheme couldn't get any more ridiculous, the weirdo escapes at this same time or was allowed free by the psychiatrist--don't care which.

To sum it up: the psychiatrist loved a chick and killed her for no logical reason. Exactly 13 years later on V-day, his dumb daughter decides she wants to kill people because she was dumped. This is perfect timing as the psychiatrist has just noticed the main chick looks like her mother whom he loved. Either as a huge ass contrivance or unbelievable planning, the weirdo blamed for the original murders is freed which allows the psychiatrist and his daughter to hide their own murders--murders that make no sense considering the psychiatrist just wants to be with the main girl. None of this matters as the actual weirdo screws up their plan anyway, and the cops figure this shit out. The weirdo kills the psychiatrist's daughter and the main girl kills the psychiatrist. Then the weirdo drives off with the main girl and the annoying boyfriend who dumped the psychiatrist's daughter. Ughh. Did any of that make sense? I hope so...

If you saw the three movies I listed before, then you have fundamentally watched this film as well. There is nothing here worth seeking out in any shape or form. The music, acting, kills, etc. are simply bland and below average in most respects. This is scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the many "Scream" ripoffs that came out around that time. Sure it has its few moments that are mildly entertaining, but those are few and far between. You'd be better off watching "Valentine" on loop for 24 hours than wasting your time on this one and that's saying something. If this film hadn't tried so hard to rip off better movies--and had focused on the urban legend aspect of the hook killer--this could have been a halfway decent slasher.

Notable Moment: At the beginning when that dumb cop is cracking jokes about a victim to the husband, a fellow cop. Really? Yeah, because that would happen. And this scene follows the already stupid moment of a couple running out of their own car to another car!

Final Rating: 4.5/10