Remember the days when the worst thing you got from a road-side rest stop was an overpriced tank of gas, a watered-down Slurpee, a 6-day-old hot dog and a genital disease from that unkempt toilet seat?...uhhh, what? Gone are those days (but not that disease, yeeesh), as they have been since the first Rest Stop--heck, since the king of all roadside terrors, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre!
  
And with the second installment of the Rest Stop franchise--Rest Stop: Don't Look Back--now on Blu-ray and DVD, we decided to chat with director Shawn Papazian. The filmmaker not only gave us the road rules for real-life rest stops, he talked about the unanswered questions of the first film as well as where the series will go next. Rest Stop 3? Ohh, you betcha?!

As a producer and assistant director on the first Rest Stop, what made you make the switch to director for Don?t Look Back?
 
I?ve always been a director, and I directed a lot of pieces in the first movie so it was a natural transition. I?ve always wanted to direct. I had gone to school for it, so in an odd way I started producing to make directing happen. I was forced to produce my way into the chair. Having a wonderful experience on the first one and being collaborative made it a natural transition.

With your direction how will this differ from the first?
 
First, it will answer a lot of questions that were left unanswered by the first Rest Stop. We?re going to really give the audience more of the characters and the motivations, the reasons and the rhymes that the first one didn?t. We focused on the surrealism, the horror and the supernatural aspects of this world, and really defining it, to make it very known that this is a ghost world. You?ll feel more nourished with the new story points and the character points.

Essentially the film is a slasher and a psychological thriller in a paranormal world?

I?m a big fan of the Twilight Zone and I felt, as John [Shiban] agreed, that we should touch on that a bit more and fuck it up a little bit. John really wanted to use his background of the supernatural world. We wanted to take the genre and making more than just a standard slasher. When you think of the Twilight Zone you think of a great little piece of storytelling and that is what we were trying to accomplish with Rest Stop. We needed to add other elements to it. With John?s background in the supernatural and my background in Cinema Verite and loving that for the storytelling, it was something we felt was necessary.
 
In a world that fetishes the violence of the Saw franchise, where seeing the next kill and the trap is sort of like chasing the next high, how do you come up with new and inventive ways to please that fan but still stay true to what you?re trying to accomplish?
 
I think that first you have to figure out what you want to accomplish. We wanted to do a little bit more than just cut people up and walk away. We tried to say ?How can we torture people?? Look at our character Jared for example, we tortured him, not in a physical way, but in a psychological way and I think going forward the idea was "Let's stretch the imagination past the standard interpretation of how torture is perceived." It can be funny. It doesn?t have to be scary. We wanted for the audience to laugh rather than to say that it was scary but at the same time, there are moments within that that make it scary. 

Would you say that it?s the comedic and supernatural aspects that separate the Rest Stop films from other backwoods killer fare?
 
I think it?s the fact that we?re trying to tell a ghost story within this type of backwoods setting that you mention. You look at Texas Chainsaw Massacre for example and it?s real. It was based on real events. Ours has that same kind of idea but we?ve taken it a step into the ghost world. That was one thing that set us apart from the rest. We wanted to make an artistic version of this genre.
 
Have you ever had your own rest stop horror story?
 
I never had the misfortune of dealing with something like this. It was purely imagination?

You and John have become experts of sorts on rest stops and roadside experiences through building the horrors of both of these films. Based on your expertise: If you?re stranded, do you stop and ask for directions?
 
I think at the end of the day, if you don?t stop and ask, you might get further lost within the world so at one point you?re going to have to stop. The question is, do you stop now or do you keep getting lost and stop later? If you stop later, your anxiety is going to be that much more than now. I?d stop as soon as I felt an oddity go down.
 
Do you leave the car?
 
Do I leave the car? If I can?t get to the person without leaving my car, I?d have to leave my car. [Laughs] Sometime?s you?ve got to leave your safety zone. It?s like if you were in the middle of the ocean; look at this movie in a Jaws similarity. If you want to leave me a little raft to get out of the boat, you?ve got to jump in the water to get there, right? [Laughs] One way or another you?re going to have to jump in that fucking big blue ocean and hurry up.
 
Given that you survive the first round, what would be your weapon of
choice to fight off your captor?
 
Having the same knowledge that our character had I probably would have used the machine gun that he uses. I think that might be the all-encompassing weapon. But, knowing what he knows now, I would try to dive into the back story and the mythology behind it. And I wouldn?t have the answer until we get into the third one?

Are we looking at a Rest Stop 3?

I hope we are. It all depends on how this one is perceived. John and I have been talking about it and we?ve discussed it and we?ve discussed the chances with Warner Brothers. I?m hoping people enjoy this second go around, and obviously it will really give us the ability to get to the third one.
 
And what is your biggest fear?

Not knowing. [Laughs.]

Look out for Rest Stop: Don't Look back now on Blu-ray and DVD!