Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that director Jon Steve Ward’s 1999 slasher film, Lovers Lane, has received a new 2K film restoration, complete with a 4K scan, from the original 35mm camera negative.
The Blu-ray edition, available on Apr. 25, for many will be the first opportunity to enjoy this genre-gem. A DVD edition was released by First Look Home Entertainment back in the summer of 2002 and has long been out of print.
Lovers Lane has a classic horror set-up that includes a prologue to establish the storyline — in this case a deranged killer, with a hook for a weapon, who savages his victims at a secluded Lovers’ Lane — a victim pool (sexually-charged teenagers) and a modified “haunted house,” in this case a recurring return to the scene of the initial carnage, plus various spooky spots nearby … sort of a “free-range” haunted house (a classic set-up, checking off all of the right boxes).
There is also a double-twist ending!!
As for the prologue, its Valentine’s Day and we see a couple, Dee-Dee (Diedre Kilgore) and Jimmy (Carter Roy) at the local hot spot attacked by a maniac with a hook, but they manage to escape, only to discover another couple in a nearby car who have not been so lucky.
Suddenly, Dr. Jack Grefe (Richard Sanders — best known as Les Nessman in WKRP in Cincinnati sitcom) appears with Sheriff Tom Anderson (Matt Riedy — Hoax, The Loners, Devotion) in tow. It seems that it is his patient, Ray “The Hook” Hennessey (Ed Bailey), who has murdered the two lovers — one of which conveniently turns out to be the sheriff’s wife. Ray is caught … and that’s the end of it!
We skip ahead to the present day (something like 13-years later) and we meet the victim pool, high school kids, many of which — it will be revealed — have a direct relationship to the original killings.
Counted among these are Dr. Grefe’s daughter Chloe (Sarah Lancaster — Devil in the Flesh 2, Smother, The Terror of Hallow’s Eve), the sheriff’s daughter, Mandy (Erin J. Dean — Lolita) and Chloe’s boyfriend, Michael Lampson (Riley Smith), who is the son of Penny, the high school principal, whose husband was having the affair with Harriet, the sheriff’s wife, when they were both slaughtered by the “Hook.”
Others in the group are Doug (Billy O'Sullivan), Bradley (Ben Indra), Cathy (Megan Hunt) and Tim (Collin F. Peacock) — which genre fans will certainly recognize as the “victim pool” — and cheerleader Jannelle Bay, played by none other than Anna Faris before her breakout role as Cindy in Scary Movie the following year.
In addition to her recurring role as Cindy Campbell in the Scary Movie film franchise, Faris was Polly in filmmaker Lucky McKee’s May, April in The Hot Chick, Samantha in Just Friends, Shelley Darlingson in House Bunny … and Christy Plunkett in the long-running Mom sitcom. Note (spoiler alert), Faris is not the Final Girl.
Ray “Hook” Hennessey has escaped from the Meston State Hospital … teenagers start dying. Who survives? And what is the double-twist ending? To discover these answers and more, enjoy Arrow Video’s Blu-ray debut of Lovers Lane on Apr. 25.
Bonus goodies include commentary with writer/producers Geof Miller and Rory Veal and the featurette titled “Screaming Teens: The Legacy of Lovers Lane.”
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