The Daily Dig: Lovers Lane (1999)

A mess of a film that got rightfully lost in the mix of late 90s teen slashers, at least “Lovers Lane” did feature a pre-fame Anna Faris.

A killer with a hook hunts down the children of his victims thirteen years after the original murders. Let’s dig into 1999’s LOVERS LANE, directed by Jon Steven Ward!

As I See It

It’s more of a teen drama than anything; you won’t want to lump it in with the other late nineties/early 2000s slashers.

For what it’s worth, films like I Know What You Did Last Summer and the million copycat slashers that followed knew what they were doing. It may have been a bunch of pretty early twenty-somethings running from a man with a hook (no different than this), but the execution was high quality. They also leaned on the rise of the era’s metal music for their soundtracks to add another revenue stream.

For Lovers Lane, there is hardly a score, let alone some rocking CD to accompany the murder.

Within a year of this film’s release, Scary Movie would come out, and there’s no chance you could have seen this and thought Anna Faris was going to be a star just around the corner. None of her strengths are highlighted, and I’m not only talking about her comedic styling.

Even though the killer wasn’t veiled throughout the movie, I knew there would be some type of twist ending. I wasn’t wrong, but it was so convoluted it left my head spinning.

I can’t even begin to make heads or tails of what they were trying to do.

Famous Faces

Anna Faris (Janelle) is the OG of horror spoof films, cementing her comedic timing as the bar for all that followed in the Scary Movie films. She’s had a bunch of serious roles, but it’s her funny bone that gets us.

It was eating at me where I knew Sarah Lancaster (Chloe) from. Apparently, I watched the Saved by the Bell spinoff series, The New Class, in which she starred as Rachel.

Of Gratuitous Nature

A film titled Lovers Lane is bound to have some topless teens necking in a car in some remote locale and subsequently have the night end gruesome and bloody.

Heartthrob

Sarah Lancaster looks the part of a nineties starlet to a T.

Ripe for a Remake

A killer coming back for revenge isn’t an original idea? You don’t say.

Spawns

No progeny to report.

Where to Watch

Arrow Video released a Blu-ray of Lovers Lane with some great, painterly-style new cover art from Ilan Sheady, as well as a slew of behind-the-scenes features and a new scan.