Generally regarded as one of the better 80’s slasher movies, Joe Giannone’s mutilated mountain man flick sees a group of camp counsellors start to die one by one just as the season ends, after a cocky teen calls on the legendary murderer during a bout of campfire stories.
The film looks pretty good considering it’s age and budget and it has a creepy quality about it that made me enjoy it far more than I probably should have, but it’s pretty laughable in places too.
The cast who are largely unheard of except for ‘Dawn of the Dead’ star Gaylen Ross range from annoying to likeable, but you do feel sorry for a couple of them as they are hacked, hung and beheaded in a couple of genuinely creepy sequences made scarier by the ambient sound of howling wind and some P.O.V shots.
The effects were decent if not a little rubbery, but I prefer latex to CGI so it worked in my favour. The deaths were pretty good including the apparently ‘infamous head under the hood sequence’ which the back of the cover hyped up so much, and the ending is pretty nasty as well.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A decent addition to the camp carnage sub genre the 80’s brought to prominence stands out thanks to it’s use of mythology and sense of campy fun. The 80’s synth soundtrack hasn’t aged as well as that of ‘My Bloody Valentine’ for example, but it has it’s moments.
