(1983)1.5Fred BeldinDrive-in exploitation expert Al Adamson's final film is a complete departure from the adults-only fare that made his name. Lost is a family-friendly wilderness adventure shot with an even hand and staffed with several well-known actors including Jack Elam, Ken Curtis, and Sandra Dee. Buddy (Sheila Newhouse) is an 11-year-old girl from the city who has been moved out to rural Utah to start a new life with her mother and stepfather. She'd rather live with her father, a jockey who travels the country racing horses, but the relatively dull countryside has been deemed a more suitable childhood environment. Trouble with her stepfather and a pet mule encourages Buddy and her dog Skipper to run off into the wilderness, but they soon lose their way and have to outrun cougars and flash floods to stay alive. Scripted by the screenwriter of KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and Too Hot to Handle (Don Buday), Lost isn't an overly ambitious story, but should please its target demographic, city-bound preteen girls with an affection for horses and a yearning for outdoors adventure. Adamson's earlier stab at all-ages audience was the entirely peculiar, barely released Carnival Magic, which was intended for children but retained the unsettling tone of the director's previous work (with plot elements including vivisection, alcohol abuse, and a disturbing talking chimpanzee). With Lost, Adamson proved that he could deliver competent mainstream family entertainment when he desired, but apparently it was not a direction that moved him, as he never completed another feature film.
