Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Year: 1980
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Attempting to reopen a run-down summer-camp a group of counselors find the area stalked by a strange killer bent on seeking revenge for an incident years earlier committed there and must find a way of stopping them to complete their rampage.
Review:
This one was quite an enjoyable and impressive effort that really has a lot going for it. The biggest figure working here is the absolutely simple and streamlined concept here, which comes from the rather stylistic approach here. This one is basically built around the absolutely thrilling suspense scenes here, where this one really manages to get numerous stalking scenes throughout here, from the opening stalking at the camp flashback to the real stalking here of the foot- chase through the woods following on from the thrilling car-hostage speeding through the countryside, the chilling encounter in the bathroom as a startling noise alerts a clueless preening victim which causes the extensive checking before the final startling attack makes for a wholly enjoyable sequence along with the graphic death and the extremely tense scenes searching in the rain for a lost voice only to have the tables turned into a tense suspense scene here all come off incredibly well here at generating a far creepier atmosphere than expected here based on the woodlands being utilized very well here.
These here are as great as they are by taking advantage of the isolation found there driven along by the film's absolutely crazy rainstorm, which comes into grand play here with the final chase through camp against the killer where the hiding and searching comes nicely with the brawling and chasing that makes for a decent enough time here. Along with the fun manner of using the POV camera to hide the killers' identity here which is a true who-done-it murder mystery, this one has plenty of suspense here to go along with the utterly brutal and graphic kills here. This one has a lot of brutality and gore here and is dished out quite nicely despite the really aggravating trend of showing the male deaths in graphic shocks with the females being stalked in suspenseful manners.
Still, that one really doesn't hold this one back since it isn't really noticed at all during the film and brings the positives along here to hold up over the film's few flaws. The main one here is the sheer stupidity an nonsensical behavior throughout here, from purposefully locking themselves into a cabin with a vicious snake, sneaking off for private time during a raging thunderstorm and purposefully removing barricades and protection here to check out someone that may well be the maniacal killer plaguing them, which is only a sample of the kind of moronic behavior here that runs rampant in here which comes quite aggravating here. Though there are a few instances here where the low-budget shines through in obvious and painful methods here, but it's not nearly enough to hold this one down from the other positives.
Overview: **** 1/2/5
One of the finest slashers in the scene, and one of the finest genre entries in total which makes this one of the most important genre titles available. This is recommended viewing for all genre fans regardless of their thoughts on the flaws or the slasher genre in general, while there aren't many who won't be entertained by this one.
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