"Pray you never hear" the LAST GASP in this little-seen nineties supernatural flick from Vinegar Syndrome.

When the local Toltec tribe disrupt the erection of a resort hotel on their sacred lands by ritually sacrificing construction workers, hotshot American builder Leslie Chase (Robert Patrick, T2) and his local foreman (Ion Haiduc, BLOODSTONE: SUBSPECIES II) arrange a wholesale massacre of the tribe. The only survivor is the high priest (stuntman Adrian Pavlovschi, BEOWULF) who attack Chase staves off, but not before the man's soul escapes his body with his "last gasp." Years later, restaurateur Nora Weeks (Joanna Pacula, BODY PUZZLE) hires private detective Ray Tattinger (Vyto Ruginis, JUMPIN' JACK FLASH) to track down her construction worker husband Julian (GUIDING LIGHT's Jim Davidson) who has been working construction jobs up and down the coast but has not contacted her in weeks. The police and even Tattinger suspects that Julian – who supposedly could not handle his wife being the breadwinner after he was laid off locally – has run out on her, but Tattinger starts to suspect something else happened to him when he workers at a Chase construction site recall working with Ray even though the company has no record of him working there. When Julian's car turns up abandoned, Tattinger learns from the shady towing company owner (Alexander Enberg) that the bloodstained car is the latest in a number of abandoned vehicles he has been directed to pick up by an unknown party. When Tattinger vanishes after tracing the party, Nora discovers in his file in the case the address of Leslie Chase whose residence she visits with real estate agent friend Goldie (Wes Craven's ex Mimi Craven, MIKEY) under the pretense of canvassing the neighborhood for hot properties. Although Chase charms Goldie, Nora suspects that her husband's disappearance may be part of something more sinister.

Bearing a surface resemblance to Pacula's thematically-similar earlier horror film THE KISS, LAST GASP is a visually-slick and occasionally striking horror film with some good performances – particularly character actor Ruginis – that is ultimately disappointing in its both its derivativeness and its clumsy structuring with either actor-turned-director Scott McGinnis – whose directorial debut CAROLINE AT MIDNIGHT was more interesting – or writer Stanley Isaacs (GROSS ANATOMY) responsible for the PSYCHO-type killing off a seeming protagonist and switching to another character. The film cannot seem to decide whether it is a horror film or a supernaturally-tinged thriller with a draggy third act in which Nora is made to look unstable by Chase when she tries to make others believe the truth (although even she has to make some leaps to come to the conclusion) before the "hunter becomes the prey" climax and the lame final frame twist. Don Edmonds (ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS) served as the film's line producer and has a small onscreen role, as does Nan Martin the same year she joined THE DREW CAREY SHOW. Although set in Mexico and the United States, the film was lensed in Romania during its nineties tax break phase with the local production services coming from Castel Film, cinematographer/producer Vlad Paunescu's studio that started servicing international productions with Charles Band's Full Moon productions like SUBSPECIES, some later stateside productions of which were distributed by LAST GASP co-producers The Kusher-Locke Company (MINDRIPPER).