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.