Sure, most of the slasher films of the 1980's were not worth the

celluloid they were filmed on, but this video nightmare may well be

the dullest produced.

Six horny pot smoking students decide to go camping. Of course,

and you know this already, they begin getting killed one by one by a

mysterious stranger. The climax has a hunky forest ranger trying to

get to the teens in time before the last cute girl becomes buzzard

bait.

John Carl Buechler, my least favorite B-movie guy, did the lousy

makeup effects here. The cast features Carel Struycken, of "The

Witches of Eastwick" and the Addams family movies. Sadly, he

does not pop up until the very end of the film, and is covered in

burn makeup, rendering him unrecognizable. Steve Bond (anyone

remember him?) is here in an early role as a victim.

Brown's direction, and the script he cowrote, both smell like the

presents brown bears leave in the woods. He pads the film with

so much stock wilderness footage, I thought I accidentally rented a

special episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Much of the

cast sits around the campfire and eats, then walk, and sit and eat

again. The forest ranger is involved in the strangest scene ever put

in a slasher film: he tells a joke about a wide mouthed frog to a

baby deer. Jackie Coogan, who must have forgot he once worked

with the legends of silent cinema, has two scenes, and is involved

in the second strangest scene ever put in a slasher film: he and

the hunky forest ranger have a conversation about cucumber and

cream cheese sandwiches on oatmeal bread...yeah.

There is not one minute of suspense here. The killer, a forest fire

survivor looking for a mate, watches the students from behind

trees. We know it is the killer because the film makers have

dubbed in a heart beat sound effect that helpfully serves to wake

the viewer up every few minutes. Skip this pile of pine sap and rent

"Halloween," instead.

This is rated (R) for physical violence, mild gun violence, gore,

some profanity, brief female nudity, mild sexual content, sexual

references, and drug abuse.