I’ve covered several of director Joe Lujan’s films, so I thought I’d check out a trilogy of slashers he has made over the course of ten years. Even though he clearly had a good sense of horror right from the first film, it’s cool to see how he tightened up his talent as the series progressed.
RUST (2014)
There are apparently several cuts of the first Rust movie, including longer and shorter edits. The one I watched is somewhere in the middle, running 53 minutes long, which is just long enough to get to the point, especially when you’re dealing with an indie slasher.
It begins with a kid who appears to work in his abusive father’s haunted attraction from what I can tell. Perhaps inspired by what his father is selling, he reaches a breaking point and makes daddy’s face into a mask. Eek!
Years later the haunted attraction has been abandoned, and we can only assume the boy never left and has grown into an adult killer. His name in the series is Travis, but I prefer to call him Rust considering that’s the name of the franchise.
Naturally a few friends decide to check out the old place and begin getting killed off rather quickly thanks to the short run time. It’s a fairly cliché and simple slasher, so you won’t hear me complaining!
The style and vibe of classic slashers is definitely there as Rust hunts his prey, so I found this to be a satisfying quickie.
RUST 2 (2016)
This 67-minute long sequel could easily (and more logically) have been edited down along with the first film to make one longer movie instead of two installments.
This time around, the cops take one of the final girls from the first film back to the haunted attraction because she believes her other friend is still alive.
That’s the plot. It’s as basic as it gets, and as usual, demands that you just go with the absurd idea that a survivor from a previous film would agree to return to the scene of the horror. Of note is that while the killer is Black in this series and all his victims are white girls, race is never mentioned.
Rust is surprisingly maskless in the opening scene, and he’s sexy scary. He’s also holding a bunch of girls hostage and even sexually assaults them. Yeah, this one adds some old school, sadistic misogyny to the mix.
The characters spend the whole time searching the haunted attraction and getting killed off one by one. Rust’s presence is much more effective this time around, but the film takes a weird turn at the end, and it’s not Rust but a feral woman who chases our main girls.
Despite this odd decision to veer away from the ominous killer he created, Lujan doesn’t pretend it never happened for the next film, making sure to address the feral woman’s presence very briefly.
RUST 3 (2024)
Eek! From hour long installments to a 108-minute full-length feature? It might seem like a bad idea, but the good news is that this one looks much more like a major motion picture, reminding us that the first two films were clearly low budget productions.
It’s years later, and the attraction is reopening, but Rust was never captured. The final girl has written a book about her experience, and she’s doing the ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening. Really? She hasn’t learned?
This one really delivers on the atmosphere, suspense, and kill scenes, and even includes a gay couple sneaking off for some sex instead of a straight couple. Awesome, and it lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.
As well-crafted as the film is, it still runs too long, in part because it doesn’t take place all in one night. That really causes the pacing to stumble at times.
Even so, there are a lot of classic horror elements here. There are fun faux scares since this takes place at a haunted attraction. There’s a mini found footage style segment. There’s one scene between the two main girls from the previous installments that delivers more character development than the first two movies combined. Rust solidifies himself as a pretty terrifying and iconic presence. There’s a slow mo kill scene reminiscent of Annie’s tragic death in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2. And there’s a satisfying final chase scene.
Although I welcome another sequel, the last scene promising one is kind of ridiculous—big, burly mass murderer Rust is being transported in a basic squad car with no partition glass. Escaping has never been so easy. Such a lazy setup.
