Horror Movie Review: Pit Stop (2020)

Pit Stop aka Acid Pit Stop is a low-budget, zombie horror comedy directed Jason Wright, with a script by Matteo Valentini.

It stars Hal Hillman as Paul and Callum McGuire as Lucio, who are on route to a big rave they have organised. Firstly though, they need to make a stop and pick up some acid. Some homebrew acid from the oddity that is James (Bruce Payne). The wig is one thing, the blow-doll he thinks is his wife is another.

On route Paul and Lucio are hit from behind by Shailene (Megan Jenkins) and Anita (Jennifer Johnson). That would be enough to cause some friction between the four but to make matters worse, Anita just happens to be Paul’s ex-girlfriend. After a ton of bickering, the boys decide to take the girls along to the rave with them.

After a ton of jokes, many that fall flat, the group finally get to the rave and start giving out their homebrew acid. Unfortunately, this stuff has a nasty side effect. One that turns those who take it into mindless, flesh-hungry zombies. It’s a rave to the grave now, will our foursome be able to get out alive? Also who is James (Gbola Adewunmi) and why does he want to kill Paul and Lucio?

It kills me to say this but Pit Stop has stolen some of its ideas from the 2005’s Return of the Living Dead sequel, Rave to the Grave. In that movie, a group of teens create a designer drug from Trioxin and give it out a rave resulting in zombie carnage. It was not a good film and neither is this even if the budget stretching can be admired.

It’s super low budget but reliant on mostly practical effects. That means we get plenty of fake blood and chunky bits of innards thrown about. Always a reason to praise a horror movie even if the odd CGI moments are notably awful by comparison. Forgivable though.

What isn’t so forgivable is the iffy acting, the overtly silly latter portions and the majority of jokes failing to land. Those, mixed with a familiar plot and the realisation that it’s just another zombie film, makes this a miss. Those involved might have put effort in but the end result is way below par.