It’s time for the local roller rink to close for the night.  Manager Rachel (Katheryn McCune) and her crew are shutting the place down.  You might think that would be a relatively simple task but you’ve never seen people who do as little work as Rachel and her crew.  They probably could shut the place down in a matter of minutes and then go have fun somewhere else.  Instead, they sit around and talk and smoke some weak weed and then they play foosball and someone else plays pinball and then they talk some more and then someone calls on the phone so everyone gathers around to listen to Rachel talk to the guy and then Daley (Robert Posey) hits on Rachel and tells her, “You know I’m over 18, right?”  Considering that Daley looks like he’s about 50, I’m sure Rachel figured that out.  And then….

Did I mention this is a slasher film?  It’s easy to forget because the film is only 74 minutes long and we don’t even see the killer’s mask until the first murder occurs at the 44 minute mark.  Some of the killings — well, two of them — are creatively nasty but they still feel like an afterthought, as if the director suddenly remembered that he was making a slasher film and not a mumblecore epic about a bunch of losers working at a roller rink.

Death Rink is dull.  There’s no other way to put other than to say that Death Rink in one of the most mind-numbingly boring movies that I have ever sat through.  The pacing of this film makes you appreciate the power of a good editor.  The almost total lack of background music makes you appreciate a good composer.  The dark lighting will make you appreciate all the more the value of a cinematographer who understands the importance of setting the proper mood.  Everything about this film will make you appreciate films that at least manage to be mediocre.

Now, I will say this.  It’s hard for me judge because it’s not like I’ve ever had a real job but I imagine that this film does capture just how boring it would be to work at a small-town roller rink.  The total monotony of the character’s lives is absolutely believable.  If this film set out to be a portrait of what it’s like to have a dead end life in the middle of nowhere, it succeeded.  The film also captured the torture of listening to dumb people attempt to have a conversation.  It’s a movie that definitely reminded me of why I don’t like to listen to dumb people talk about their lives.

And I’ll also give the film this.  At the end of the film, one of the final living characters fights the killer with a broom and that was almost weird enough to work.  Of course, it would have been even better if the scene had been properly lit so that I could have actually seen the characters without squinting so hard that I was worried I was going to pop a blood vessel.  But I guess I can’t have everything.

As far as roller rinks go, I’ll stick with Skatetown USA.