I was most recently impressed by the film adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s “The Girl Next Door,” a film pretty frowned upon by some Ketchum fans, but generally loved by me. I had generally high expectations with “The Lost” and was mostly not disappointed. While it’s not a complete win for me in the end, the performances, matched with the absolutely taut glimpse at the random violence youths are capable of makes for a better dissection of random teen destruction than most other directors tend to accomplish. One of the better feats this film commits is with the rousing ensemble performances from a mainly unknown cast. Marc Senton is fantastic as the sociopathic Ray Pye who is not only sexually confused, but feels very emasculated and threatened by stronger women.

Senton plays Pine with enough erratic attitude and psychotic temperament to make him a simultaneously fascinating but incredibly excruciating human being upon which the film centers. Michael Bowen steals the show as the obsessed detective Schilling who is dead set on busting Pye throughout the course of the story anxiously awaiting the moment to prove Pye committed the two vicious murders we see in the first ten minutes of “The Lost.” Much like “The Girl Next Door,” Siverston brings some rather vicious and disturbing violence providing a true glimpse at the lengths Pye is willing to go to feed his own ego and punish the women in his life who have resisted his advances and bruised his vanity. What occurs through most of “The Lost” is a surefire glance into the mind of a man soon to burst with blood soaked vengeance and the lead into a shocking and rather exhausting climax serves to show how unstoppable Ray’s massive ego is and what violence he’ll commit when confronting strong women. While not the complete masterpiece the aforementioned film was, “The Lost” makes a great case for being a cult classic.

The problem with Siverston’s film is that it just plain overstays its welcome suffering from a story that’s about ten minutes too long. When Ray finally hits the wall and goes on a wave of vicious violence, Siverston is much too dependent on Senton’s performance and sadly Senton suffers going way over the top to the brink of inadvertently comical sequences that fail to depict how truly psychotic Pye is. The last fifteen minutes of which are rather forced and ridiculous when Pye is drawn into a corner and terrorizes the women in his life he feels scorned him leading into a closing scene that is not only too over the top to be taken as demented, but just drawn out and painful. “The Lost” really could have used a truncated story to cut the padding, as well I was really waiting a twist involving the opening murders that sadly never came. Which would be forgivable if Siverston wouldn’t have hinted through most of the proceedings that there would be an inevitable twist.

It’s not a total win for me, as “The Lost” can be drawn out, overwrought, and inadvertently comical, but Siverston brings an awfully disturbing portrait of vanity in the hands of a psychopath, drawing great performances from most of his cast. You also have to love the end where the director recommends reading the book.

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