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Don't Go In The Woods (1981)

DVD Cover (Code Red DVD)
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Overall Rating 38%
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Ranked #6,312
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Four backpackers decide to take a hike in the mountains of Utah. But within the woods lurks a killer. But who...or what...is it? The lazy local sheriff blames bears. But the escalating body count seems to point to a human killer. Ignoring the warning signs, our campers remain lost in the woods...alone...awaiting their fate. --TMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: March 19, 2007
It's time for another slice of slasher movie goodness, and today, I'm going to take a look at a little film that taunted me for months while sitting on the shelf of the local mom-and-pop video store. You see (literally and figuratively), this movie has an extremely cool and very eye-catching cover in addition to a synopsis that truly sounded interesting, but there was always something that sounded just a little better than ended up getting my money. It would never fail though: every time I'd walk into the horror section of that store, this one would jump out at me and I swear that I actually heard it utter "Pick me!" a few times. I ended up picking it eventually, and at the early age of ten or eleven, I learned a valuable lesson: never, ever judge a movie by how cool the cover is, especially if the year on your calendar begins with "198." Since that was well over a decade ago, I decided to watch the semi-recent DVD release of it in order to see if my opinion would be swayed, and, well... read on.

Much like most of the slasher quickies that lined video store shelves during the eighties, the plot is extremely simple. A group of friends - Peter (Jack McClelland), Ingrid (Mary Gail Artz), Craig (James P. Hayden), and Joanie (Angie Brown) - head off into the woods for a weekend camping trip. Unbeknownst to them, however, there's a maniac wearing what appears to be bear furs running around with some sort of spear who enjoys killing anyone who dares to enter his neck of the woods. Who will live, will the serial killer get his in the end, blah blah blah... you know how these movies go by now.

Just in case there's any first-time MvMMDI readers who happened to stumble across this review, I should point out that I'm a huge fan of those cheesy eighties slashers that favor gore and tits over storyline or acting. I'll be the first to admit that the vast majority of these films are flat-out awful in all but the "entertainment" categories, but I do have a soft spot for them and as such, I usually rate them much higher than those who dislike the genre would. Therefore, when you see that final "X/10" rating at the bottom of this review, remember that it's based on how much I personally enjoyed this movie and not for the technical aspects, the quality of the gore, the storyline, or anything else that most critics would judge a movie on. If you happen to be one of those people who think that these movies are complete and utter shit, well, I'll save you some time: this movie certainly won't change your mind, so you might as well quit reading now.

With that said, I'm not going to launch into a long spiel about how groundbreaking this film is or gush about how much I enjoyed it, because truthfully, it's just an average film (even when compared to the rest of the eighties sleaze). Viewers will realize that a lot of effort was put into the film while watching it, and while I can't say that any aspect of the movie is downright bad (remember, I'm saying this as a slasher fan who enjoys the bad acting and thin storylines that come with the territory), there's certainly nothing very memorable to be found here other than the excellent cover image.

The characters in this movie never even have a chance to "Go in the Woods... Alone!", because there's an abundance of people wandering around in there who serve no purpose other than to stack the body-count. A photographer and his nagging wife, a middle-aged pair of honeymooners, a guy in a wheelchair, a girl on roller-skates (skating on a gravel road, no less), an artist, and other assorted people all show up for the sole purpose of getting a spear to the chest or a bear-trap to the face. Again, this is the charm of these films, but my problem was that the majority of these kills were lackluster. You'll get one nice, inventive kill to whet your appetite, but then, you have to suffer through two or three tired "spear to the chest" kills that have been done time and time again.

When you watch these movies for the kills (after all, what else would you watch them for besides T&A - but there's none of that here either) and most of them have been done countless times over and better, well... you're left with a film that is average at best. Check it out if you're a huge fan of those eighties slashers, but otherwise, give it a pass. 5/10.
Tristan #1: Tristan - added September 2, 2008 at 11:41pm
I think a 5/10 is being too generous. This movie went on forever, and didn't pick up for a second. I love these films, but this was a particularly bad one.

2/10
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