THE FINAL TERROR (1983)
Tagline: If you go down to the woods today you're sure of...
(Horror, Slasher, Nature Trail To Hell In 2D) [R]
If you people want to survive, you better start looking and thinking like the forest.
In this one, a large group of young people (rangers in this case) heads into the woods to camp at a new place they have never been before. Soon they realize they are being hunted by a crazed lunatic. Wait a minute? That’s the plot to hundreds of horror flicks?
First off one of the things that helped get this movie on the map was the fact that it stars Daryl Hannah (probably best known for SPLASH). It also has Joe Pantoliano in it. Pantoliano is probably best known for playing “Francis” in THE GOONIES. It also has Mark Metcalf, probably best known for ONE CRAZY SUMMER. It also features the versatile Ernest Harden Jr. who is best known for HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE. Outside of that though it’s also either celebrated or maligned for using only natural light. For forest movies or movies that are in the dark a ton, I can’t stand this. It makes everything a LOT more difficult to see. There is even a scene where Windy tells us she can’t see a thing. Either can we Windy…either can we. For horror films, dark is fine as long as you have some lighting to bounce off the subjects in the frame. Fortunately, large sections of this movie do end up with plenty of lighting so it’s not like watching a blank screen the entire time.
The acting is pretty decent. Pretty much every actor in this movie mastered the art of freaking out. There is also a bit of RAMBO-type stuff going on here when the group is forced to employ survival techniques and take matters into their own hands.
I did notice some of the music choices reminded me of moments in FRIDAY THE 13TH where it seems like everything is going to finally be over and we go straight back into tense scenes shortly after. The killer in this one wears camouflage a lot so the rangers never seem to know where he really is. In some sense that adds to the intrigue and creepy factor of this movie. There is also a bus scene in here where the survivors decide to spend the night in a bus. All of them are sleeping with their heads up against the windows. I wouldn’t be doing that if I was in survival mode and there was a whacko or whackos running around in the forest.
This ultimately ends up being a rough one for me. Even given the cast, this movie is pretty forgettable. For horror fans, this might be something to check out, but I think it’s below average, and for those reasons for me it lands at a 2 out of 7. Hardly anything gets an explanation or backstory and there are too many characters you aren’t rooting for largely due to a bad script. Even the title is weird given what actually goes on in the movie.
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