This is certainly not a classic film, but many reviews here show that people completely failed to understand what was happening with the plot.

Spoilers ahead:

Rest Stop is really a ghost story, not a slasher movie. The rest stop is haunted and everyone that Nicole meets there is a ghost. The strange family in the RV, the girl locked in the closet, the policeman and even the serial killer in the truck are all supernatural. This is why the policeman and girl in the closet simply vanish. The killer's truck can't be damaged and we even see it in perfect condition right after it just completely burned. It's a ghost story! You can't evaluate the plot in terms of hard logic. In one of the final scenes we see that Nicole has been killed by the serial killer's ghost and her spirit is now trapped at the rest stop as well. The whole thing is pretty clearly spelled out.

I'm not defending this as a good movie. It's very tedious in a lot of areas and it never really comes together. However, most of the people who thought it was the "worst movie ever" didn't even take the time to figure out what was happening. I guess if a movie isn't completely obvious, some people get confused.

This movie surely does not deserve 8, but I give it an 8, because it does not deserve the 1 that most people gave it either.

The movie lacks basic logic at many points, the acting is not that good, and the whole setting is pretty unreal. However, most people seem to fail to get the happenings in the movie completely. Perhaps the reviewers should read the review by Sixforthehoney to understand what is happening. I quote below the major points he mentioned, with added notes.

1) The religious family killed "The Driver".

2) "The Driver" came back as a ghost and killed the religious family. Note: He does not die even when his truck burns into flames, but rather comes and attacks the girl. (Later, the struck was shown to be fully intact.)

3) "The Driver" then killed people who came to the rest stop.

4) Some of those people (including the girl in the closet) came back as ghosts. Note: The girl disappears along with the blood she vomited, within seconds after talking to the protagonist.

5) The religious family still exists as ghosts to preach their judgment of sinners. Note: they drive the van with the girl in it for a long time, and yet finally the girl is dropped just in front of the notice board, a point where she had started her journey. It's they who take pictures of the future victims.

6) When Nicole is killed, she came back as a ghost at the end. Note: That is the reason the ranger does not see her, but the future victim hears her voice and sees her.

**Note:** The policeman is also ghost. There's no human being on earth (including Arnold and Chuck Norris), who would be able to say, "You missed me" after about 40% of his skull and brains are blown out by a point blank shot. That is the same reason the girl does not see his remains when she climbs the roof.

Young couple on the road, minding their own business and having casual sex in their car during broad daylight. Yet, suddenly, they're being menaced and terrorized by a deranged psychopath in an old and rusty pick-up truck. Hmm, where have I seen this premise before? Oh yeah, now I remember, we've seen this a THOUSAND times before already, and approximately nine hundred and ninety-nine of the other cases were much better than "Rest Stop"! This weak and pitiable new movie is insulting even to the intellect of the most undemanding horror fans, as it doesn't feature a single original twist or memorable gimmick. It's very sadistic and nasty, but every teenkill-slasher flick is sadistic and nasty nowadays, so that's no real surprise anymore, neither. The absolute main problem with this production is the incredibly large amount of dumb plot holes and meaningless sub plots. Writer/director John Shiban damn well realized that the ultra-thin basic storyline nearly wasn't enough to fill a whole movie with, and thus he stuffs up his film like a Thanksgiving turkey with imbecile and nonsensical padding material. Nicole's boyfriend vanishes at an abandoned and filthy rest stop in California. Killing off her character right away wouldn't result in a very long movie and thus she subsequently encounters a motor home family of freaks, suffers from visions (?) in which she talks to the deranged killer's previous victims and she has deeply emotional (and boring) conversations with a police officer who just won't die even though a truck ran over him...twice! The dumb sub plots never lead anywhere and they're definitely the most pathetic and desperate attempts to stretch a movie's length I've ever seen. Instead of all the pointless padding, Shiban should have paid more attention to building up tension and make his lead characters a little more likable. Jaimie Alexander's character Nicole is an annoying and brainless girl, and you won't really care whether she'll survive the ordeal or not. Her boyfriend Jesse as well as the cop are both whining losers and their brutal deaths still weren't painful enough, if you ask me. I counted exactly three sequences, all including torture and gratuitous mutilation, that were gory and exciting enough to bring a sadist smile on my face. That's still way too few for a nowadays horror movie. Basically, "Rest Stop" is simply a miserable attempt to cash in on the success of such films like "Wolf Creek" and "Hostel", but you're better off watching the originals. This was the first film of the new production company called 'Raw Feed'. They're promoting themselves as the new name in great horror, but they'll have to come up with something much better than "Rest Stop" if they want us to believe that.