Review of The Lost

I'd like to think that I am at least as insightful as an average person. Having studied the craft and written a couple of screenplays myself, I'm at a loss of words - which doesn't happen very often. Maybe one has to read the book, which I'm guessing is far superior to this cinematic mess, in order to follow or 'get' what the purpose of the film is. Three teens in the woods stumble upon two girls in the woods, they're shot. OK, good start... but then we jump to a cast of characters with a LOUSY setup. Who are they? How do they relate to the story? It takes too much effort to piece it together and my 30mins+ we don't really care - we're LOST! The setups in the film don't really have any satisfying payoffs and there's a lot of ON THE NOSE scenes that are placed in order to ensure the audience understands the plot that hangs together by a thread. Are we the audience suppose to root for Ray? I don't think so. Is there even a protagonist in the film? I don't think so. So are we the audience just sitting through a bad movie that showcases a villains dark side? Totally unsatisfying. Again, no comment on the book... I'm sure it's wonderful in a dark kind of way, but it's likely an impossible feat to convert that story into a successful film - this one has failed. Yes, the audience is the only thing about this movie that is clearly LOST and this is likely the worst or second worst movie I've seen in years.