The Final Terror

It sucks to be able to see the ending coming from a millions miles away but this was entertaining stuff. Genuinely scary in parts. Weird camera movement at the end that felt out of place.

It's like The River Wild mixed with the military base chunk of Stripes, the surprise reality of Survival Quest and the end of Predator. Wait, what the hell is this movie?

bad movie

A Deranged Mother Kills Anyone Who Enters her Wilderness ..... Hmmm; Sound Familiar ?

Interesting proto-slasher, with several before-they-were-famous actors getting stalked by a mysterious killer in the woods, but actually deciding to do something about it rather than wait for the killer to off them one by one. Gorgeous scenery and some pretty good scares make up for the flat (though impressively proactive) characters and pretty obvious twist.

There are definitely flaws in this backwoods slasher: you don't really care much for any of the characters or the story. Daryl Hannah is wasted in her role. Still, the film utilizes its setting to great effect and builds a very nice ambiance. That's all it takes to elevate it above most slashers.

Odd 80s slasher/horror that was just OK. Featured several actors who got quite a bit more famous in years to follow.

Despite a relatively high-profile cast for an 80s slasher and future Fugitive director Andrew Davis at the helm this is an underwhelming affair. Body count so low it almost qualifies more as a wilderness survival film than a slasher, plus long deathly dull stretches, undefined characters, a million fakeout scares, an ending that’s so sudden it almost comes across as a punchline. I guess if you think of it as almost a Blair Witch-style movie it might work better, but as a slasher, not really.

This is a mess. A mismarketed, poorly put together mess. The pacing is agonizingly slow, the writing isn't hot, & the twist is so telegraphed that when it actually happens it's just silly. And disappointing. There are more attempted kills than actual kills, there are too many characters to get attached to any of them, & the performances range from iffy to just above that. For a movie that tried to call itself the best in backwoods horror, it might be among the worst. Bland, boring, & skippable.

I know, let's get on a raft, go downriver and hope we spot the killer. And how the fuck did they manage to build and execute that pendulum?

A reasonably enjoyable slasher made with a bit of skill and making the most of the fine locations. It's a bit disjointed, and perhaps it isn't as involving as it could be, but it strays from slasher norms enough to keep it interesting, and it's fun seeing early film roles for the likes of Zmed, Hannah and Joey Pants. Worth a look.