It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I'd like to think that I am at least as insightful as an average person. Having studied the craft and written a couple of screenplays myself, I'm at a loss of words - which doesn't happen very often. Maybe one has to read the book, which I'm guessing is far superior to this cinematic mess, in order to follow or 'get' what the purpose of the film is. Three teens in the woods stumble upon two girls in the woods, they're shot. OK, good start... but then we jump to a cast of characters with a LOUSY setup. Who are they? How do they relate to the story? It takes too much effort to piece it together and my 30mins+ we don't really care - we're LOST! The setups in the film don't really have any satisfying payoffs and there's a lot of ON THE NOSE scenes that are placed in order to ensure the audience understands the plot that hangs together by a thread. Are we the audience suppose to root for Ray? I don't think so. Is there even a protagonist in the film? I don't think so. So are we the audience just sitting through a bad movie that showcases a villains dark side? Totally unsatisfying. Again, no comment on the book... I'm sure it's wonderful in a dark kind of way, but it's likely an impossible feat to convert that story into a successful film - this one has failed. Yes, the audience is the only thing about this movie that is clearly LOST and this is likely the worst or second worst movie I've seen in years.

First, whilst i'm sure the filmmakers did not have a substantial budget, I did not notice any telltale signs of a low budget production. Second, the story is fascinating. Characters at the polar extreme of an intriguing personality type make great film subjects. Despite the lead character's cavalier attitude to the murder of other HUMAN BEINGS(!) the story is nonetheless believable. This is a great credit to the filmmakers. The beer cans in Ray's boots to elevate his stature and the make-up to smooth over any cracks in a fragile (almost porcelain) veneer plainly expose the vanity of a seriously self-obsessed individual. Finally, the lead actor playing the part of Ray Pye ABSOLUTELY nails it.I don't like indie films generally but this was a winner. If you like films like 'seven' and '8mm' then i'd happily recommend this movie.

"The Lost" is basically a character study of a hot-headed loser named Ray Pye who gets away with the double murder in the prologue,then goes about his life filled with sex and drugs for nearly two hours of screen time before erupting into a homicidal orgy of violence for the final act.Ray puts crushed beer cans in his shoes to make himself look taller.As if this were not enough,a later scene underlines Ray's essential wimpiness when he converses with a convicted felon at a drug party.The most intriguing fact is that beautiful girls find him attractive as they fell for his bad boy charm.Ketchum drew the character of Ray Pye from the real-life figure of convicted serial killer Charles Schmid,who killed three girls,all in their early teens and buried their bodies in the desert.Marc Senter is very believable as Ray and the climax is bloody and disturbing.8 out of 10.

Stephen King's work is easy to synopsize and market because his premises are novel. There's a hotel that holds onto memories in "The Shining", a little girl who starts fires in "Firestarter", and a fan who goes nuts in "Misery". It's no surprise that King's work has been cannibalized to death by Hollywood because it's easily reduced to a marketing hook. Marketing King is like marketing a McDonald's hamburger. You know what you're getting. There aren't too many surprises. Jack Ketchum, though much admired by King, is a different kettle of fish. With the exception of "Off Season" and "Ladies Night", his work is not the stuff of Hollywood marketing hooks. The beauty of Ketchum is how he gets into his characters' dark heads. His work is much darker than KIng's and he makes few concessions to mainstream expectations. His horror lives in the house next door or in the mind of the person you're married to. Aside from "She Wakes", Ketchum steers pretty clear of the supernatural and focuses on the sort of people who get arrested every night on the news. Which brings me to "The Lost". It's about a sociopath, Ray Pye, who manipulates and bullies everyone around him. When not destroying other humans with a gun, he destroys them slowly by mere association. You don't want to meet the guy. You want to steer well clear of him. Especially if you're female. Now, this story has been done to death (in novels and films), but because Ketchum is Ketchum, his take on it is fascinating and chilling. The movie version of "The Lost" is less successful and less creepy than the novel because its horror is externalized. We get strange sound effects, bizarre editing shifts, and some interesting color treatments that attempt to internalize the mental dynamics, but what made "The Lost" book so disturbing is only half present here. Still, the movie is a good one. Marc Senter is strong and convincing as Ray Pye and Chris Sivertson's direction is solid. But because Ketchum's beauty is his point of view and not his plotting, the movie's plotting becomes predictable. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Pye goes on a rampage at the end after he is pushed into several corners from which he can't escape. Though the scenes of him blowing people away are potent, their power is diffused by their predictability. Part of me feels that Ketchum works better within the universe of the printed word. Poe is the same. The nature of King's work lends itself to cinematic translation, as does the work of James Patterson and Alistair McLean. With "The Lost", you get a smart, well made tale of horror, but you don't get the essence of Ketchum. You will only get that from a Ketchum novel. So if you can't translate Ketchum adequately to the silver screen, why see these movies? Well, that's the challenge for the filmmaker.