Don't Go In The Woods/Paintball

This week's SAW is a slasher/musical, and it's called Don't Go In The Woods...not to be confused with an early-'80's slasher that had a similar title, but with"...Alone!" added to the end. Will it be music to our ears? Will it be tone-deaf? Well, let's get down to our SPOILER-filled viewing, and find out!

The very first scene shows us those woods, and there's a young woman limping through them, covered in blood. A hand grabs her shoulder, and she screams as the title comes up. There's a brief shot of her gory remains and an axe, then she goes bye-bye. Yup, now we're in flashback territory....Seriously, why do so many movies do this?

We get an extreme closeup of a pair of eyes that are so milky-looking, this guy almost looks like a corpse. There's talk of omens, and something about a place that is apparently so fantastic, "the guys" won't want to leave. Uh-huh.

A song starts up on the radio, about a country singer who fell in love with another man. It's pretty frickin' funny, even after it turns to be a song about loving Jesus. The large group of guys in this particular van start to pass around a bag of weed, but the one driving tosses it out of his window. The others look pretty pissed, even the blind one seated next to the driver(And why would they give a blind guy the seat with the best view?).

Anyway, these guys are out in the woods to write some songs, in anticipation of a recording contract in the near future. Let's meet 'em: First up is Nick, the lead singer, and the jerk who wasted the weed(oh, and he looks like Elijah Wood); Johnny, the token minority character(though he's Asian instead of black, which is pretty novel); Robbie, the blind musician; Anton, the keyboard player(who sort of resembles Louis, the creepy lab-geek on Dexter); Ahhh, they're singing again, hold on...

*SLIGHTLY OVER AN HOUR LATER...*

Okay, new plan. about 80% or so of this monstrosity is sung instead of spoken, so I'm watching watching something more slasher-y instead: a movie called Paintball, that I found under "Free Movies" on the On Demand menu on cable. The other movie was a train wreck, and the narrative would have been near-impossible to describe, given the ratio of songs to spoken dialogue(or even plot...). Plus, every guy in the band(besides the Asian) resembled Frodo after awhile.

Okay, so let's put that ordeal behind us, and watch Paintball together...

THIS STORY begins with a funny advertisement that features a pair of Russians in military garb. The one in front is pitching a paintball wargame business called Redball Woods. The second soldier, a younger female, simply glares at the camera and fidgets. Every time the male lists a feature of the business, the other one nods her head curtly. Finally, when the male soldier fires paint pellets at the camera, the female starts to grin.

Then we meet our main characters, 8 people who have signed up with Redball Woods to play at being survivalists. All have hoods over their heads, until a recorded voice instructs them to remove the hoods. Then the voice assigns each person a role in the team First, there's David, who is assigned to lead the team into battle; Iris, who is assigned to be front infantry; John, a rifleman taking rear infantry; a wide-eyed brunette named Brenda, who is on tactical support; Eric and Anna, who are assigned as recon scouts; Claudia, who looks excited to be a sniper;    and finally, Frank, who slept through the entire recording, is tasked with being a rifleman. Maybe they can tell him when he's done snoozing...

Okay, so they all start the process of gathering up their crap. Right away, this seems pretty shady...they have pellets that have gone past their expiration dates, some of the equipment and armor seems pretty flimsy, stuff like that. The recording tells them that they have one full day to find and capture 6 flags belonging to the team they're going up against. Also, there's a box at each flag that will supposedly contain items they'll need to win.

As they get ready to play, one of the women thinks that she recognizes another one from a game held the previous year. The other woman denies it, which probably means that she's lying. We'll see, but I'm betting that it'll be a plot twist at some point, that she's a pro dropped into the group. Or something like that.

Everyone leaps out of the vehicle, and they find themselves in a grassy clearing, surrounded by a forest. As a group they run for the trees, and lethargic Frank has trouble keeping up. He looks familiar, but I'm not sure why. I think that my brain is probably fried from seeing so many of these movies.

While they wait for Frank to catch up, the others plot their strategy for capturing the first flag by consulting their map. The position is about 20 minutes away, so David orders Anna and Eric to start moving up the trail, and look for any potential threats. He then asks Claudia to protect their progress with cover fire at any potential threats. Iris and John are told to flank on each side of the group, and Frank gets pissed off about everyone being ordered around. David responds that he's the only one with enough experience to correctly plot out the map, and no one disagrees.

They find what could best be described as a "car graveyard"(Whoa! Flashbacks to Wreckage!), and the enemy team fire on them as they explore the various vehicles. The enemy has them pinned down, so one of the women(Brenda, I think, although it's hard to tell, as they all have masks and goggles on) starts to climb into a bus for shelter. Her gun wasn't firing correctly, which is yet another omen that these folks are in for trouble.

Trying to locate the first flag and the first supply box, Claudia is assigned to climb a hill, to see if she can see anything from a higher position. The rest of them look beneath the vehicles, in the trunks, inside the cars...They find nothing. Even Claudia announces that she doesn't see anything helpful.

Frank, who couldn't keep up with the others a few minutes ago, is now standing on the roof of a car and whining about how little action there is. The other team gets him back by firing a ton of pellets at his position. Heh. They seem to be flanked on all sides, so David orders the team to seek shelter on the bus.

In the middle of all of the chaos, David asks if any of them were able to find the flag or the box, and there are negative replies all around. Then, they all realize more bad news: Claudia isn't on the bus. As they talk trash about the other team, a smoke grenade is hurled into the bus. David orders them to stay on the bus, so as not to expose any of them to the sniper(s?) outside.

The other team waits them out for a few seconds, then another projectile is flung through a bus window: The box! It contains a single item, a bulletproof vest. Claudia shows up, and it turns out that it was her who tossed the box into the bus. After everyone congratulates Claudia on her find, David tells them that they need to leave the bus, so as not to get surrounded. Uh, isn't it kind of too late for that?

Anna and Eric go first, scouting the perimeter as they dodge from car to car. They give the "all clear", and Claudia moves to their position next, using her rifle's scope to search for that pesky sniper. Then David joins them, and the rest follow when he gives the signal, either alone or in pairs.

The other team begins another assault, and one of "our" guys gets shot in the foot with real ammunition. Another member of the team is then shot in the head, and they all start running. That's the smartest thing they've done so far...John, who I think was the one shot in the foot, tries to keep up, but he's limping pretty badly.

John is hit again in the leg, and goes down. As he's attempting to crawl to the trees to hide, he begs his team to return and help him out. He manages to get himself standing again, only to step into a trap, a rope that wraps around his ankle and pulls him up into the air, swinging like a pinata.

While he's twirling around, another soldier is spotted crouching next to a tree. It's David, who moves in for a closer look. John is incredibly grateful, until he realizes that David only wants the vest. Wow, nice leadership qualities.

The rest of the team find a large electrified fence preventing them from leaving. They argue back and forth, with opinions divided over whether the shooters are psychos from another team, or if it's the owners of the business hunting them for sport. Apparently, none of them have seen Hostel. Oh, and Brenda has a breakdown, right before a long-dead human body is found.

John shows up then, and the others ask him how he managed to get the vest. He changes the subject, and starts to give out orders again, probably just to distract them. As they plot a course to the next flag, one of them misfires his gun, making everyone jump.

Hey, now we have a night vision sequence! The villain(or one of them, if it's a team), sneaks up on John and throws small round items at him to wake him up. As John begs for his life, the killer finds a large rock, and props a rifle up against it, directly underneath poor John. A bayonet is attached to the rifle, and the killer walks over to the tree the rope's other end is tied around. He cuts the rope, and John's head is sliced apart like a watermelon.

The other members of the team discover the first flag, but no one wants to risk dying to run out in the open and capture it. They decide that it should be David, since he's now wearing the vest. Ha! Before David can do anything, Anna(I think) offers to retrieve the box instead, with the caveat that whatever she finds belongs to her. Without any further discussion, she darts out of the woods to get the box.

Using a nearby tractor for cover, she quickly snatches up her prize and opens it.  Inside the box, she finds a bottle of some sort(which she quickly tosses away), and a machete. Immediately after, she hears a prowler in the trees nearby, and signals for help from her teammates. Run Anna, run!

As everyone starts a-running again, the enemy fires at each of them in a pretty random fashion. In the confusion, a female character is shot, and Anna accidentally uses the machete to kill a woman who was apparently on another team, as another player shows up to scream at Anna in a foreign language. Anyone else as confused as I am here??? The angry guy blows a whistle to  reveal their location, which just seems bad, no matter who he is.

David asks Anna what the second item in the box was, and threatens her with the machete when she doesn't reply. Lucky for her, Eric arrives to stop him. David then declares that they're taking the foreign guy along as a prisoner. As they march through the grass, Frank complains to Brenda  that they should have tied the stranger to a tree and left him for his group to find, as opposed to forcing him to be their hostage.

Eric tries to ask the stranger some basic questions, but he either doesn't understand, or has decided to play dumb. Brenda then asks Frank to hide in the forest with her, until the game ends. Her theory is that everyone will forget about them, allowing them to escape to safety somehow. Now THAT is the plan of a genius....

Brenda then stumbles and falls, bringing everyone over to make sure that she's okay. In the frenzy, the prisoner vanishes as well. Oh, and even though the map indicates that the next flag and box should be in the area, none of them can find anything. They even speculate that the foreign guy may have hidden things before they captured him.

After another disagreement, David decides that they should just make their way to the fourth flag. The march off in a line, but Brenda, who's last, trips yet again. She hears noises all around her and gets scared, so maybe taking off by herself isn't the best plan. The rest of the group gets further away, and Brenda starts to panic.

In the next scene, she's being shot at, and running through the trees. Uhhh, were some key scenes removed here? When did the team lose her entirely? How do they not hear the shooting? Eh, who cares? Brenda gets hit by a stray bullet, and rolls down a slight incline. Her body ain't moving after that. Oops....

Frank is the first to notice that she's missing. He shouts at the others to stop, but they just ignore him at first. As Frank continues to insist that they stop to find Brenda, Eric finally approaches him and asks him to shut up. Iris pipes up, and tells Eric that Frank is right, and that they should work as a team to find her and do a better job of protecting each other.

All of that just gets Frank riled up even more. He yells ahead to David, asking him how he really got his hands on the vest, and why he gets the machete as well. When he adds that the foreign guy is probably nearby, picking them off one by one, David ambushes him from behind a tree. David then pushes Frank to the ground, holds the machete to his throat, and tells him to stop yelling.

After David marches ahead again, Eric and Anna help Frank to stand up. They also resume the hike, but Frank runs off to find Brenda. Iris announces that she's also going solo, if the next flag is missing. Wow, David sure has some effective leadership skills!

The killer, still wearing his night vision goggles, has decided to see if Brenda is dead or not. She wakes up, sees him, and backs away, weeping hysterically as she realizes her predicament. The killer indicates that he took the box everyone was looking for, and he kicks it in her direction. She opens it, and finds an odd-looking gun, which the killer forces her to pick up.

As they face each other, Brenda tells the killer that she doesn't know what kind of gun it is, or even how to load  the thing. She also admits that she only signed up for paintball because her shrink encouraged her to "try new things". Then Brenda turns away from the killer, and anticipates being shot in the back as she slowly creeps away. When that doesn't happen, Brenda discovers the the killer has vanished. She runs into the forest, more frightened than ever.

David, sensing a threat ahead of the team, silently indicates that they should try to surround and ambush whoever it is. Then we return to Brenda. She's leaning up against a massive stone structure, and she searches the perimeter for a hiding place. Amazingly, she finds a door carved into it, and runs inside.

She yells and shouts, then discovers that the many leaves beneath her are camouflaging a floor made out of porcelain or some other smooth, shiny material. Thinking that maybe there's a structure underground, Brenda pounds on the floor and screams for help. Yeah, I'm sure they'll rush right out.

The killer locates her, and stands at the entrance to the cave. When the movie switches to his perspective, we see that Brenda is surrounded by what look like corpses seated on the floor around her, about 4 of them. She sees the killer and backs away, crashing through a door into a second room. The killer shoots her, and she falls forward, her blood spreading out over the floor, which is clear in this room.

Back to the team. The find the foreign guy, and surround him. After shooting him with paint pellets--and Iris whacking him with her helmet, which she loses by the side of the road--they question him again. He has Brenda's armband on him, and he tells them his name, which is Yurick, but that's it. He breaks loose fast enough to punch David in the face, and David retaliates by stabbing  him with the machete. Alas, poor Yurick, we knew you not at all. David stabs him a second time, this time twisting the blade.

After more hiking, they find out that their outfits are possibly "marked", even the vest. That leads to a decision by the women to remove their camouflage tops. If you ever needed a quick definition of the word "gratuitous", this scene would fit the bill. David watches them remove their shirts, and he's getting to be creepier than the killer.

They spot a flag and a black case at the bottom of a hill, and look for signs that it might be a trap. Since David is being such a whiny baby about sharing the vest, the others tell him that he needs to fetch the items himself. The viewpoint changes to night vision, and the killer stands nearby, preparing to execute David. Someone watching the killer's progress orders him via an earpiece to let David live. Damn!

When the case is brought up the hill, they find that it contains random metal tubes and other components, but no one can figure out how they go together. There are 2 boxes left, and 2 flags. They split into 2 teams, in order to get the items quicker: Eric and Anna  are paired up, and David teams up with Iris.

We follow Iris and David first, where we discover that David spells "team" with an "i". He's going at such a brisk pace through the woods, I'm somewhat amazed that he doesn't say, "Meep-meep!" every minute or so. Iris should've just gone with the others. David does finally slow down, and both he and Iris find Frank.

Yup, Frank. Iris asks David to cover her progress as she sees if she can help Frank. Frank tells her to go away because she's walking into a trap, but she keeps coming to him. The ground beneath her foot starts to tilt, but before Iris can back off, asswipe David grabs her by the head and throws her into the hidden pit. Man, I hope his death is painful...perhaps he can be forced to watch this movie about 200 times! It's shown that Frank's arm was somehow caught in a beartrap.

His arm??? Aw, c'mon movie, how does that even make sense? His foot, sure, but he would've had to have been crawling around for that to happen to his arm. Maybe he was following a trail of M&M's, Pac-Man-style.

Some of the creeps monitoring the mayhem comment that David seems to be aware that there are cameras on him at all times. Well, DUH. Gee, do ya think they know they're being hunted too? The villains decide to kill Frank next, with an explosive mine.

Anna looks like she somehow got herself lost, as she spins around, just gawking at each and every tree. Oh okay...she and Eric have found their case, and are just being cautious. Anna points out a camera positioned above them in a tree, and tells Eric that she's seen several more.

Eric opens the case, which contains more paintballs and a flashlight, but Anna observes that the pellets seem to weigh more than a paint pellet should. Eric places one in his gun, but it shatters when he cocks the gun, splashing his face with acid. Anna tries to clean the side of his face and flush the acid with water, but Eric's injury makes The Phantom of The Opera look like Brad Pitt.

Uh oh....more night vision. The killer has found Iris and Frank, but the controllers of the game order the killer to ignore them. He kills the pair anyway, laughing like a maniac when he bashes Frank's skull in. The owner of RedBall tells the others in the viewing area that the killer going rogue merely makes the hunt more interesting. Oh, and the killer is named Dan.

While Dan is on the prowl, so is David. David sits under a wide tree to remove his outer layer of clothing, then carries it over to a large fall tree, where he crouches and plans his next move. Dan finds his position, and sneaks up on him. David leaves his jacket off, but puts his armored vest on over his shirt, and waits for the killer to reveal himself.

Dan takes some potshots at the log, and David grins. Grabbing his stuff, he stands up, and gets shot in the back. Well, either the vest was a fake, or he was shot somewhere that it didn't cover. David goes for his hunting knife, grimaces, then seems to stop breathing. When Dan gets close, David tries to slice him, but the killer stands on his arm.

As David struggles, Dan puts a knife to his throat, but doesn't finish him off. He instead waits for our favorite idiot to remove another shirt and stand up. Now that both men are armed and standing, After David takes a few wild swings at the killer, Dan delivers a slice to his neck, sending up a spray of blood. Then he falls to his knees.

Dan kicks him over onto his side, as David gags on his own blood. Then the killer removes an explosive mine from his backpack, places it under David's vest, and sets it off by stepping on his chest. Then he repeats the process. Methinks that psycho Dan isn't a "people person", under any definition.

That evening, Anna and Eric get back to the rendezvous point, and get worried when there's no sign of David and Iris. Eric's face looks worse, if that's possible.Anna lies to him, saying that it looks better. Eric gets up to pace around, and gets ambushed. Anna screams his name, but there's no response. After a moment of peace and quiet, Anna hears a woman on Dan's radio, asking for his current location.

Anna follows the sound, then tries to ask the voice for assistance. The mysterious woman calls Anna by her name, then tells her to bury herself in the dirt, explaining that Dan has the night vision googles. When Anna scoffs at the suggestion, Mystery Woman explains that the barrel of her rifle can be removed and used as a breathing tube. If Anna lives 'til morning, the voice promises to give her more assistance.

Although she hates the idea, Anna does as the voice instructs her. It works, and the next morning Anna struggles back to the open air. She puts her gun back together, then the woman calls her to bsay that there's a trap directly in front of her. She finds Iris, and the mystery voice tells her to go back to each and every checkpoint, and gather every spare part from those sites. The pieces, when assembled properly, make a gun.

Anna finds David along the way, and removes the vest from his corpse. She puts the vest on and starts to leave, but her guide tells her that there's something next to David that she needs. There's a series of sequences showing Anna finding bodies and revisiting the various box locations. Several times the voice speaks up, alerting Anna whenever Dan is near her.

As she crosses a rickety-looking footbridge, Anna nearly gets shot. She grabs an overhead rope as one side of the bridge collapses, and pulls herself to the other side. She dodges around the trees, but a stray bullet strikes her backpack. Despite her terror and pain, Anna manages to get to her feet. She limps her way to a house, and begs to be let inside.

Anna circles around to the back, unaware of being observed by the people who bet on the game. The glass is tinted black on the windows and is thick enough to almost drown her voice out, even when shouting. She fires paint pellets at the windows to vent her anger, and the voice calmly tells her that there is a door on the other side of the house.

She gets in, and finds herself in a basement/tunnel area. Another black case reveals the last machine piece, as well as a series of forged death certificates assigned to each member of her team. The voice tells her that the killer is close, and suggests that she should stand in front of one of the 2-way mirrors, because he'll confuse her for an audience member if she just stands still and watches him.

Dan decides to start firing at the observers, and Anna takes advantage of his distraction to get on the floor and assemble the gun parts. Then she leaps to her feet, pulls the trigger, and....nothing happens. That one stray bullet must've damaged some of the gun parts, because it's only making a hissing sound now.

Dan pulls his trigger, but he seems to be out of ammo. Excuse me if I giggle loudly now. He draws his hunting knife, and Anna pulls out the machete. Hell yeah! 2 duels in 1 movie! That rocks. While the random shooting is occurring, the female voice reveals to Anna that one of the windows is not bulletproof. It has a red mark drawn near it, so Anna sets about trying to trick Dan into approaching it.

She shows him the fake death certificates, and he looks for his own. Anna rushes at him, pushing Dan through the window. She then climbs into the room again, using a chain that was set into the wall to pull herself up. The RedBall people give Anna her freedom, as long as she promises never to tell anyone about what happened to her. If she breaks that rule, then they'd have to murder her.

Anna removes some of her equipment, and exits the property. A closeup of the death certificate with her name on it reveals that they had planned to make her demise look like a car crash. She finds a car with keys in the ignition, but doesn't take the bait. The final scene  shows Anna on foot, afraid of pursuit. She stops in her tracks, spins around, and screams, "WHAT!?!" into the camera. THE END

Well, it was a better film than Don't Go In The Woods, that's for sure. But while the kills were varied, the characters were way too generic to root for any of them. If you're going to rip off Hostel, then you need to try to be as over-the top and memorable as possible. This just wasn't. 2.5 killer trees out of 5 for some of the concepts and gore. Aw heck, you get an extra point for not singing when being chased by the killer. 3.5 it is.

It's taken a while to watch 2 of  these, so I'm not sure when my next movie arrives. Wait and see.....

Don't Go in the Woods...Alone!

Don't Go in the Woods Alone! Seriously, just don't. It won't make any sense, and you'll be disappointed. The movie comes from 1982, and is hilarious, if not always coherent. As always, there will be SPOILERS, but I'm pretty sure that I'm one of about 12 people who've seen this thing all the way through. You won't be missing much if you never rent this, trust me.

Anyway, the DVD began with a short intro by some guy I've never seen before, and he proclaimed it a classic. In both the opening and the closing credits, one actress in particular, "Angie Brown", had her named singled out by a rectangle, for some reason. Oh, and the theme song during the title sequence keeps stopping and starting, punctuated by what sounds like a cuckoo clock...ay yi yi, what have I gotten myself into this week?

As the movie finally starts, we get several scenes depicting the aftermath of "something"...an attack by the killer, is my guess. There's something that looks like a bandanna beneath a tree ranch, a camera lying in a stream, stuff like that. Before long, we see a woman in short-shorts and a tank top screaming and running away from some unseen threat. She falls once or twice, and flails around quite a bit. Then the scene ends. Yup, it ends right there.

Next, we see 4 people backpacking, presumably in the same area as the woman we just saw. Before we get to know any of THEIR names, the scene shifts yet again, this time showing us a birdwatcher. The birdwatcher, who also has no name, is wandering around like "Monty Python"'s Upper Class Twit of the Year, when he gets pegged in the face by something. His cheek starts bleeding, and a guy dressed up like Captain Caveman chops his arm off. As the one-armed Twit tries to defend himself, that scene also ends in an abrupt cut.

Back to the 4 people hiking. At least now we start getting some names: There's Peter, a young biker-type who hates being out of the city, and is unable to say "air conditioning" in a normal way; Craig, a loud, whiny outdoorsy type whose voice sounds like it was dubbed by someone who just learned English the week before filming started; Jody, a dark-haired female who looks kind of butch; and Ingrid, an equally masculine-looking female with short red hair, who unfortunately looks like Ron Howard after a sex-change. Poor Opie.

The other 3 listen to Craig prattle on and on with survival tips, including the film's title, while I consider pulling a Van Gogh to spare myself from the irritating voices. The scene changes AGAIN, this time introducing a wildlife photographer named Dale(who looks like a gay version of Sam Kinison), and his wife. The wife apparently has no name, so I'm calling her "Chip". So there, nyah, nyah.

While Dale is taking pictures of twigs and bearshit, Chip is sunning herself in a folding chair. Dale decides to climb a small mountain for a better view, and Captain Caaaaaaaaaveman strangles him with the camera-strap from behind. Dale falls to his death, mere feet away from our other campers, who never notice his corpse. Chip is also killed, but the method and the aftermath are never clearly shown.

The 4 campers, meanwhile, are still wandering around. Craig consults a map, then offers them a choice: they can either keep going straight, which is rough terrain, or they can circle around the next morning, and find the trail instead. Tired of listening to Craig being a buzzkill, they opt to camp out.

Guess what happens next? If you guessed "another scene transition, where we meet another group of dumb characters in yet another location", you WIN!!!! Yup, this time we get to meet the local sheriff and his bumbling deputy. The sheriff looks like Jabba the Hutt, if you can picture Jabba squeezed into an ill-fitting uniform and wearing bad '70's hair and a moustache. His sidekick looks like Stifler from the first 3 American Pie films. Oh, and we get a weird cameo by Napoleon Dynamite at the end of the scene. Gosh!

When Stifler brings the latest "Missing Person" report to his attention, Sheriff Jabba throws a hissy fit. Together, they go to the general store to question a witness. The missing person turns out to be the birdwatching twit from earlier. When Jabba gets up to leave, he has to force Stifler to go with him, as he's deeply engrossed in an action-packed pinball game. At the national park, the sheriff has a very brief encounter with a cute girl on roller skates.

Then we return to our "main" characters. They hiked a little further, then set up camp. Craig tells them a scary campfire story, and the only reaction to his dull, lifeless narrative is a single "Huh?" from Ingrid. Jody then tells him not to finish the story, and I came very close to applauding. He continues anyway, garnering another "Huh?".

The movie shifts the scene to a mobile home(complete with a Farrah Fawcett poster on the ceiling), and we meet still more under-developed characters. I swear, this movie was made for people who have the attention spans of hyperactive hummingbirds. There's a woman in the mobile home who looks like David Schwimmer, and she's screwing a guy who resembles Dauber from the old sitcom "Coach". This movie would be the scariest thing ever, if I was tripping out. To no one's surprise, the guy's name is Dick.

There's a sound effect that sort of resembles the sound of a rattlesnake, and Dick theorizes that it's probably a bear. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, WHY am I watching this junk??? Anyway, Schwimmer urges Dick not to leave, and he shows her a gun. They have about 3 lines of dialogue before he leaves, and they repeat them over and over again. Wait, I now know why I'm watching this one: I must've died, and this is Hell, right? It all makes sense now!

Dick draws the killer out by calling him a jerk and a pencil-neck geek. Boy, that sure is some pretty strong language. It worked, because Dick is killed pretty soon after that, and his bloody face is pressed against one of the windows. Oddly enough, he appears to have been killed by jelly doughnuts, because his face is covered in white powder and red jam. As Horse-Face freaks out, Captain Caveman pushes the camper over the side of a cliff. There's even a half-assed fire inside after it finally lands on its' side. Wow.

The following morning, Peter wakes up from a nightmare with a start, causing Ingrid to let out another Shakespearean-level "Huh?"...I swear, you could make a drinking game out of all the weirdness in this film. Someone get on that. After they all "Huh?" about 60 more times, they resume their hike to this mythical cabin they keep talking about. Jody wanders away from the main group without realizing it, and stops to get her bearings at a stream. While she contemplates what to do, a number of rocks sail toward her from above!

Oh, it's just her friends, playing a prank. Everyone knows the best practical jokes are the ones that could lead to massive concussions. Duh!

Sheriff Jabba, meanwhile, decides to rent a plane to haul his fat ass around. He wants to see if he can locate some of the people from the reports his deputy brought to his attention. Hell, he probably ate them (the people, not the reports)! He and the pilot fly around a bit, but see nothing out of the ordinary. The sheriff announces he'll give the missing folks another day or so to turn up, and the pilot looks like he could give a shit.

In the next scene, we see someone dressed in khaki dipping a jar into a stream. The person gets back to their campsite, and we see that they brought a baby along for the fun as well. Wow, is this movie cynical enough to kill a baby?

The person collecting the water turns out to be female, and an artist. She is busy painting a watercolor, while her baby is jumping around in her makeshift cradle/sling. As she paints, the woman detects the presence of our hillbilly nearby, and stops to look around. When she resumes painting, he attacks her from behind, impaling and attaching her to her own canvas. Blood gets all over the canvas and her camping gear, and the baby's swing-thing is shown empty. Wow, the movie called my bluff! Is Captain Caveman going to eat the baby or raise it?

The movie then kicks into Screensaver Mode, showing several scenes of outdoor footage, before somebody behind the camera hits their mouse and gets the movie started again. Peter decides that all the rests they take are too time-consuming, so he announces that he's going to walk ahead of them for a bit. He tries to convince Ingrid to go with him, but she'd rather stay with the group.

Walking along the path, Peter hears something. He keeps moving, and tries to track any movement as he goes. Something comes toward him, so Peter gets scared and starts running back toward the camp. He runs into his friends as the pursuer catches up, and it turns out to be some doofus wearing Gilligan's fishing hat. He passes the group after a brief conversation, and everyone shares a laugh at Peter's expense.

Later, as they refill their canteens, they discuss where to set up camp for the night. Jody jokingly suggests that they should set up their sleeping bags in a circle around Peter to protect him from monsters, and he gets pissed off. Peter tells them that he'll find his own spot for the night, and starts walking away from the rest of the group. Craig tells the girls not to worry, because he believes that Peter will cool off and return before too long.

That night, some couple I don't remember seeing before now gets attacked by Captain Caveman. He swings one of the campers up into a tree, trapped in their own sleeping bag, while he stabs the other one to death. Then he turns the one in the tree into a pinata.

Craig makes a campfire and starts peeling potatoes, while Jody keeps an eye out for Peter's return. Both he and Ingrid assure her that Peter will be fine, and that they will all be together again in the morning. Yeah, right.

Peter, in the meantime, is freaking out faster than Freakazoid. He's made himself a campfire, and is waving a stick around, yelling to all of the woodland critters that his stick is a shotgun, and that he's quite proficient at using it. He spends the whole night yelling. Chicken.

The next day, when Peter still hasn't returned, Jody starts to really get worried about him. Ingrid and Craig tell her that they plan to go off somewhere alone, to learn more "survival tips". Jody decides to stay close to the camp, in case Peter returns at some point.

Speaking of Peter, he's collecting firewood. He stops to reminisce about the good ol' days, about 20 minutes earlier in the film. While he's daydreaming about androgynous women splashing him, his fantasy is interrupted by the fisherman who freaked him out earlier. He sees the guy approaching the water to catch fish, and watches as the man gets a bear-trap to the face. Above Peter's little hiding spot is Captain Caveman. Peter watches Captain Caveman approach the flailing man and stab him with a spear several times. Then, when Peter screams and flees, Captain Caveman sees him and decides to hunt him as well.

Following that, we get Jody and Craig frolicking in a field. I shit you not. It's more annoying than Julie Andrews on that friggin' mountainside by about a billion percent. Craig decides to show Jody how to build a rudimentary animal trap, using string, a stick and a heavy rock, and she repays the favor by bringing the rock down on his hand. Why the frack are there pranks always borderline psychotic? Given a choice, I think I'd rather camp out with Captain Caveman. He's less deranged. Oh, and when Jody apologizes, she then slams her fist down on his hurt fingers. Psycho....

Back at the tent, Ingrid hears them screaming and laughing, and contemplates asking Jodie Foster to go out with her, so the tabloids could dub them IngDie, or maybe JoGrid. Hey, it could happen!

Next, we finally get back to Peter. Tired of running, Pete's decided to collapse at the foot of a tree to catch his breath. Bad plan, because he soon hears Captain Caveman heading his way. He frantically snatches up a gigantic branch, and runs the other way.

Craig returns to camp eating a bag of trail mix, and Ingrid suggests that they should get moving again, in case Peter's in trouble. Craig agrees, but first he declares that he wants to get even with Jody. He then sneaks over to her sleeping bag and ties it shut. He then strings her up to a tree, much like the anonymous camper CC killed earlier. Ingrid hears her screams and continues sipping her morning cup o' joe.

Jody continues screaming at Craig, but he doesn't respond. She manages to find a small hole in the sleeping bag, and uses her fingernails to rip it wider. Jody peers through the tear, and sees the Cap-man heading her way. Craig returns, but when he uses a tree branch to make the sleeping bag swing a little bit, Captain Crunch shows up to stab him in the gut.

With Craig down, Jody finally manages to get out of the sleeping bag. Ingrid runs to see what all the commotion is, as Craig is dragged away by the killer. Oh, and Captain Caveman took a swing at him before that was hard enough to remove the guy's arm. When Ingrid comes along after everyone has fled the scene, she sees the blood and starts running aimlessly as well.

Peter gets back to the deserted camping site and starts rummaging through supplies, trying to find anything to use against Captain Caveman. While he's on the ground distracted, Ingrid emerges from the tent with a massive rock in her hand and tries to bash his head in. They hug when she realizes he's not the killer.

Reunited(and it feels so good!), the pair try to escape the woods while also searching for their friends. They find a cabin, and decide to ask for help. Heck, maybe it's the cabin Craig told them about! Being a useless ninny, Peter decides the best course of action would be to approach the cabin at a run, while shouting several greetings. Good plan, bro. Ingrid even points out that it might not be safe, making her officially smarter than Peter.

They enter the cabin anyway, with Peter taking the lead and thrusting his spear out in front of him. Wow, that sounded kinda dirty, didn't it? Yeesh. As the soundtrack gets louder and louder(the music sounds like what your washing machine does when you have an "unbalanced load"), Peter tells it to keep quiet. I swear to God, that actually happened.

While looking for weapons or clues or the frickin' Holy Grail, the uncover Craig's body. Ingrid just keeps saying no over and over again. In her defense though, Peter doesn't do anything useful either. The do agree, however, that they should leave quickly, before the killer finds them in his home.

Little do they know, Captain Caveman's pretty busy at the moment. He sees a young guy strolling around and decides to make him the next meal. Oh, and he has the dumbest plan since any Looney Tunes cartoon ever aired: he simply waves his stick around, while waiting behind a tree for the guy to come investigate. And the idiot does.

Well, as it turns out, it wasn't such a dumb plan after all. See, Captain Caveman knew that Ingrid and Peter were nearby, so he lured the hiker over. That way, when the guy takes the stick and starts walking around with it, they'll hear the jangling noise it makes and assume that it's the killer. Kind of smart, actually.

Sure enough, they hear the guy walking with the stick, and run the other way, toward danger. They hide behind a fallen tree, and Peter jumps at the stranger, stabbing him with the makeshift spear he carved. Hilariously, he screams at the dying man how sorry he is, which I'm sure helps quite a bit. Oh, and now that he knows where they are, Captain Caveman chucks a spear through the dying guy, and goes after the terrified couple once more.

Captain Caveman starts throwing sharpened branches at them, and hits Ingrid twice: first in the arm, then in the side of her head. Peter tells her to run, because he believes that the killer wants her in particular. Oh, and the killer's reaction to hitting her is classic, sort of demented jump-dance thing, with lots of grunts and growls.

The two survivors stop at a babbling brook, and Peter cleans and dresses Ingrid's wounds. He then washes the blood off the spear, while Ingrid watches in a daze. Oh, by the way, there's still about a half hour left in this thing. In case I don't make it, can somebody please tell my friends and family that I died peacefully? They don't need to know the horror I faced this week.

Oh, guess who decided to rejoin the movie? Yup, it's Jody, and she's wandered her way back into the campsite. As she looks for food, a corpse drops out of a tree, and she takes off running once more. Oh, that wacky Jody!

Ingrid and Peter hike through rocks, trees, water...you name it, they stepped in it. That night, they huddle together in front of a small fire, and Ingrid tries to tell Peter the sort of stuff you only say when you know you're going to die. He assures her that they'll make it, and he tries to stay up all night to ensure their safety.

The following morning, Peter wakes up first and sees something that makes him ecstatic: telephone poles. In the dark, they had wandered close to civilization again without ever realizing it. After another "Huh?", they limp into town to find some help. THE E--

Wait, what? It's not over yet, even though they got away? Nope, Peter and Ingrid speak to Sheriff Jabba at the local hospital. Tell ya the truth, I had completely forgotten about him even being in the movie. Sheriff Jabba and Deputy Stifler compare notes and discuss whether or not the mysterious mountain man even exists. They eventually decide to stage a huge manhunt, using every available man and emergency vehicle they can find.

They stop to talk with "Dr. Maggie", one of the doctors taking care of Peter and Ingrid. She tells them that Ingrid lost a lot of blood, but it's Peter who is the real problem. His mental instability, coupled with his obsession over going after Captain Caveman himself, makes him a loose cannon.

Speak of the Devil! Peter escaped the hospital, and is on his way back to the park. He has the same ripped, dirty clothes on from before, no weapons to defend himself with, and not a single other person to watch his back. Smart guy, that Peter.

Oddly enough, Jody's still alive. She's been dodging under fallen trees, crouching behind rocks, drinking from streams...who knew she'd make it this far? I sure didn't. At any rate, Jody feels stronger after washing up and eating her last candy bar, so she returns to Captain Caveman's Dream House, armed with a big rock she found. Wow, she found a rock in the woods...What're the odds?

On her way to the house, Jody finds a cooler, and roots through it for anything edible. After licking a paper plate that looks like it dates back to the Triassic Age, she enters the house, ready for battle. She trips a few times, and finds a cardboard box that grosses her out, before she realizes that Captain Caveman is standing in the doorway, just watching her. Eek!

She backs away as he raises his weapon, and finds a small window above her head. As Jody frantically tries to reach it, Captain Caveman slices several deep cuts into her back, and she rolls away to try to defend herself. He keeps stabbing her through the stomach and chest, until she stops moving. Buh-bye, Jody.

In the woods, meanwhile, Peter stops to take a sip of water before arriving at Captain Caveman's House of Carnage. Oh, and he defends himself against a very scary tree. Then he runs away, before the tree's friends decide to retaliate. Smart decision.

Next, we meet a fat guy in a wheelchair. He's been struggling to push himself uphill, and when he pauses to wipe the buckets of sweat from his face, the chair starts rolling backwards--FAST! Before we get to witness either the most awesome or the most politically incorrect death in the film(or both), the scene ends right there. Damn!

Jabba, meanwhile, has assembled his posse. Deputy Stifler advises the gun-toting rednecks to "hang loose", right before the sheriff tells him that Peter is somewhere in the woods as well. As luck would have it, Peter is watching the whole scene unfold from a safe spot higher up in the forest. Jabba also delivers the news that the helicopter has been cancelled...I guess the film's producers realized that they spent most of their budget already. Darn!

Anyway, back to Martin Mull's wheelchair-bound twin brother. He's finally managed to get back up the path, when his chair tips over. D'oh! As a guy with a leg injury myself, I shouldn't be laughing. But, boy AM I!!! This shit's better than "Cats".

Just to recap Our Story So Far: Peter's running around with a sharp stick; Jody and Craig are dead; Ingrid's in the hospital fighting for her life; Sheriff Jabba is wandering the woods alone, looking for a fast food joint; Deputy Stifler's trying to keep a bunch of slack-jawed redneck yokels from shooting themselves; and Captain Caveman's looking for love(in several wrong places). Got it? Okay then, let's move on.

Jabba waddles his fat ass right to the killer's house. He calls out several times, to let the killer know his position, then enters the house. After a brief search Jabba finds a shiny hatchet, and Jody's corpse falls on him when he bends over to pick it up. As Jabba tries to drag her body outside(aren't they supposed to preserve crime scenes for, y'know, EVIDENCE???) to snack on, Deputy Stifler rushes in and scares him. Peter watches the two lawmen drag her body outside, and he gets all worked up.

The posse helps the sheriff and his deputy find more bodies. There turn out to be a total of six. Let's see how well they did: we have the Twit birdwatcher; Chip and Dale; Dick and his wife whose face looks like a foot; the painting lady whose baby was taken(and maybe eaten!); the anonymous couple; the fisherman; the anonymous hiker who gets Captain Caveman's club; and Jody and Craig. That comes out to...uh...carry the one...12(13 if you include the missing baby). Whoops, sorry posse, KEEP LOOKING!

Dr. Maggie swings by to bring Jabba a steaming cup of decaffeinated lard, and reveals that she also brought along Ingrid. Ingrid, for the most part, is just staring straight ahead at a knife in an evidence bag. Foreshadowing? The sheriff and the volunteers all spread out, looking for the killer.

Wheelchair guy again. Y'know, just for the heck of it, I'm going to nickname the guy Cutter John, after one of my favorite characters from Bloom County. To his credit, Cutter John has FINALLY made it to the top of the hill. Yay! As he surveys the amazing landscape before him, Captain Caveman unceremoniously removes Cutter John's head. Yay! His chair sails down the mountain, never to be seen again. Yay?

The next(and hopefully, LAST) morning, Captain Caveman sets up some kind of trap, a wooden box. Peter resumes running around the woods and waving his spear. Oh, and the posse resumes their search yet again.

Peter's the first to get results. The mountain man charges at him like a furry rhino, knocking the weary warrior off of his feet. As Peter takes off his shirt, Ingrid pops up out of the blue, swinging a knife and charging at Captain Caveman. Yay, the cavalry's here!

Turns out that Peter removed his shirt so that he could make a stick-figure decoy to draw the killer out into the open. The plan backfires, because it's Ingrid who sees the shirt first, and runs toward it, joyfully screaming Peter's name. She realizes at the last minute that it's not him, and hides just as Captain Caveman arrives on the scene. He sees the shirt, jibber-jabbers his usual nonsense, and Peter leaps up and chucks a spear through his shoulder. Down he goes!

Peter and Ingrid leap into each other's arms, neither one noticing as the killer uses his good hand to pull the spear out of his shoulder. As they kiss and hug, Captain Caveman leaps up and chases them, and Peter tells Ingrid to run in a different direction. He gets the killer on the ground, and bashes his repeatedly with a heavy, thick branch in the gut. Ingrid, not wanting to be left out, grabs the machete and helps turn Captain Caveman's torso into a pile of red mush.

Jabba and the posse hear the commotion, and arrive at the scene. A short distance away, the missing baby is watching the couple kill Captain Caveman, and she mimics them, hitting the dirt with an axe. Hey, he didn't eat her! Yay! The sheriff, his deputy, and the members of the posse all raise their guns, until Jabba sees who is killing who. He lowers his gun and just shakes his head in disbelief.

After most of the posse has gone home, Jabba and Stifler stare up at Peter and Ingrid, cleaned up and wrapped in blankets. Stifler calls them a cute couple, and Jabba throws him a dirty look. The final scene shows the little girl still playing on the ground, whacking the dirt with an axe. THE END. "HUH?"

Boy, what a disjointed, confusing movie this was. Bad enough that the killer is someone we find out NOTHING about, but then we get the stuff at the end about the baby? Are we seriously supposed to believe that the police, the couple, and the large group of volunteers ALL missed seeing a baby at the crime scene? Outdoors? In daylight??? Oh, and what about only finding half of the bodies? Geez, this movie had plotholes so massive, even the sheriff's ass wouldn't plug them up! 2 and a half killer trees, just for the massive body count, although half of them were people who didn't even have friggin' NAMES!

Ugh... next week we're back in Jason territory with Friday the 13th Part 7:The New Blood. See you then!