Grizzly Park

Today's movie, Grizzly Park, s like a hybrid love-child mix of Final Destination-style death scenes with one of those "animal attack" movies that pop up on SyFy every so often. It features a serial killer, a rogue grizzly bear, and a group of inner-city teens trapped in a national park. It'll either be brilliantly insane, or just the usual stupid insane. SPOILERS ahead, campers...

Okay, so we start out with a credit sequence that references a Bible story about a bear that was summoned to eat a large group of children. Um, sure. The little pseudo-animated storyboard is pretty funny, at least. That's followed by a scene depicting an elderly park ranger watching the morning news in his office. There's a story about a blazing forest fire, followed by a report about Butch Latham, a convicted murderer who managed to escape from prison. Foreshadowing?

A-yup. In the very next scene, we see Butch murder a county officer who had to change a flat tire. Before he meets his demise, the poor guy tells Butch that he's on his way to pick up some troubled teens for a camping trip to the park. They don't show his face, but I have a feeling that Butch will be the hulking dude with blood all over his clothes. Yeah, I'm psychic that way.

Then we see the old man again. His name is Howard(which is probably an in-joke, as he's an older actor by the name of Rance Howard), and he greets a younger employee named Michael. After they have a quick chat, we see the killer try to remove the massive amount of blood from the uniform he stole off of his victim. Then he finds a knife in the van, along with the list of teens he's going to pick up, and a detailed map.

Then we see the various teens arriving for their big adventure, and the film gives us this awesomely goofy song about an encounter with a bear. The song alone earns this movie a tree. As the song winds down, we see Howard and Michael going over some paperwork, while the overhead television replays the report about the manhunt.

The song resumes, and the teens are loaded into the van. Their mugshots are shown onscreen, but not their names. Gee, thanks. Why are these movies always designed to be this obtuse? Would it kill the writers to let us get to know the characters in one of these movies?

Anyway, they arrive at the spot where they'll begin the hike, and meet up with a couple of late arrivals, as well as the leader of their expedition, Ranger Bob. A serious-looking preppie named Ryan tries to shake hands with a teen Neo-Nazi type, and they end up awkwardly holding hands instead. Pretty funny.

Ranger Michael takes a role-call, and we finally meet the rest of the characters. We've already met uptight Ryan; then there's Ty, the lonely black guy; Lola, the token Latina female; Candy, a spoiled rich girl; Kiki, the token Asian girl; Bebe, a cute willowy girl who seems like a complete ditz; Scab, the aforementioned racist; and Trickster, a hacker with a major attitude.

After the initial introductions, Ranger Bob comes out to address the troops, and explain the rules of camping. First rule of camping, don't talk about fight cl--uhhhh, I mean, no swearing. Second rule: Pack appropriate clothing and gear.

During his lecture, Ranger Bob suddenly notices that the driver has a shirt covered in a mysterious red stain. He explains that his shirt got dirty while he was changing a tire, and no one thinks to mention that tires don't usually bleed out. Ranger Bob just frowns and suggests that he should change his shirt. Oh, and the killer changes his name to Jerry, which is a foolproof way to fool everyone.

While Ranger Michael is helping crazy Jerry change his shirt, Ranger Bob starts to give a lesson on the various animals they could encounter during the trip. Bears, wolves, coyotes, skunks, and moose are just some of the wild animals waiting to eat them alive. Ranger Bob promises them that, in the event that a person is left behind by the group, he will not search for them.

Finally, the hike begins! Ranger Bob confuses Bebe right off the bat, because Bob is his last name, and his explanation is pretty complex for her to follow. During the name thing, she forgets what her original question was. Oh well.

Howard leaves the park early, and that gives Jerry an opportunity to be alone with Michael. He gets some information about the park from the young man, then stabs him in the gut. As blood starts to trickle out of Michael's mouth, Jerry kicks him onto the ground.

The hikers come to a narrow bridge, and stop to admire the view. Then we see the killer hide Michael's body in a shed, stopping only to wipe the blood from his knife on the already-messy shirt. Why is he so attached to that one shirt? Just change it!

Ranger Bob has the group take another break in a picnic area. This gives our killer some time to catch up, and we see him in a vehicle, rushing to meet up with his next targets. Oh, and the teen boys in the camping group make a bet over whether or not Bebe's ample bosoms are real or fake. Real or fake, I'd say tit's up for debate...*rim shot*

Bebe needs to go off to do some "female business", so Ranger Bob advises her on how to dispose of a tampon in the woods, without attracting animals to the scent of blood. Trickster starts to follow her, but the park ranger stops him. Then we get a cute scene with Ty and Kiki. They're both listening to music on different devices, and they exchange ear buds with each other. Like I said, it's cute.

After doing her thing, Bebe sees a little woodland creature, and decides to feed and pet it. Despite my begging and pleading, the unseen creature doesn't gnaw her hand off at the wrist. Dammit! When are they going to design a movie that lets the audience decide how to torment the cast?

Candy is admonished when Ranger Bob sees that she brought a phone with her, then Ty shows him, via a GPS device, a route to the camping area that would take less time to travel. Ranger Bob disagrees, citing the shortcut as a place where wolves tend to migrate. Then, as we see the killer's vehicle racing through the woods, the campers encounter a skunk. It turns out that the skunk was the creature that Bebe met, mistaking it for some kind of "forest cat", in spite of the big, skunky white stripe.

Kiki screams, the skunk panics, and the entire group is sprayed by the skunk. Then Ranger Bob calls Jerry, who has just arrived at the eventual campsite. He assures the ranger that the camping gear has been dropped off, then he starts to drive away.

And now, at long last, we have The Most Important Scene in the entire movie, the scene where all of the teens strip down to their underwear, then stand around in some water, splashing and frolicking. While Ranger Bob prepares a warm fire in a nearby cabin, Bebe steps inside to see if he needs any assistance.

Meanwhile, our serial killer has been driving around the park. He also stops at a cabin, where he hides out to plan his next move. By the time he's ready again, it's nightfall, and we see that a presence is watching him from the forest.

Jerry senses the stalker watching him, and decides to ignore him/it. He unloads the jeep, then hurries inside. I don't know why, but I love it in horror movies when the main threat is also threatened. It's fun to watch villains squirm.

The teens all warm up around the fire and enjoy themselves, until Ranger Bob announces that they'll have to wear their stinky clothes again when they're dry. Scab, uncomfortable about having to sit between a Latino and a black guy, announces that he needs to "drain the dragon", leading Bebe to exclaim that she can't believe that he has a dragon.

A fake spider is used to try to scare Ranger Bob, but he just calmly observes that it's about the same size as the ones that lurk up in the trees outside. Then he sends the campers off to the tents, which are divided by gender. Ranger Bob tries to radio Jerry again, but Jerry's getting pretty loopy now. He smashes the radio into pieces, then stomps around in a tirade.

The killer gets back out of the cabin, and decides that it would be best to just leave. A bear stops him, though, so Jerry decides to whip out his trusty knife, and take the beast out. The bear, completely unfazed by the weapon, retaliates by chomping Jerry's face right off of his skull. Sweet!

Early the next morning, Ranger Bob has the campers collecting bags of litter. Candy spies Ty talking on his own phone, and manipulates it out of his hands. Ty, ever the resourceful dude, plans to show off by using his GPS route to beat the others to their destination. He shows the path to Kiki, and they head in that direction together.

No one even seems to notice that they're gone. Ty and Kiki use the time to get to know one another, and we learn what they did that landed them in trouble with the law. Kiki poisoned her mother, while Ty stole anything he could get his hands on, while working with the elderly. They both brag about how stupid other people are compared to them, and agree that they should scam old folks together. Oh, and Ty's GPS sucks ass, because they don't end up beating the group to the campsite.

When Ranger Bob steps into the cabin where he was supposed to meet Jerry, he finds the wrecked radio equipment. That's when he also finally realizes that he's misplaced a pair of teenagers. Maybe Ranger Bob should start looking for another job...

When they realize that the GPS was wrong, Ty and Kiki start to get nervous. Things go from bad to worse, when Ty steps into a snare, which pulls him up off the ground and injures both of his ankles. Kiki rushes over to the spot where he dropped his stuff, and searches the ground for the phone. She picks up the GPS device instead(Remember, Candy stole his phone earlier, by never returning it...), and it screams at her to GO BACK...GO BACK...GO BACK...

They yell and scream for help, then we return to the main group again. Candy is talking to Ryan, and the conversation mostly consists of them mocking others in the group. They both share a good laugh, until they hear Lola doing the same thing to them. Chagrined, they move off in different directions.

Ranger Bob heads into the boys' cabin, where he hands them a sheet of paper. It contains a list of items that he needs to confiscate, under the pretense that they would attract bears. The items on the list include things like deodorant and cologne, and none of the teens will admit to having any of the items on the list. Ranger Bob gets annoyed with them, and warns them that if a bear attacks, it will be their own fault.

Kiki sees blood, and realizes that Ty may be very badly injured by the snare. She and Ty spot a wolf nearby, and Kiki worries that the scent of the blood might put them in danger. She decides to run away, and an animal attacks her off-screen, as Ty swings around helplessly, wondering what finally got her.

Ranger Bob makes a campfire that night, and suggests that it might be a good idea to discuss their court cases as a group. Candy goes first, revealing that she was making money as a high-priced prostitute. Then Ryan steps up to the plate, revealing that he was caught having sex with a minor, and that they were both involved in an asphyxiation act. That act directly caused the girl to lapse into a coma, and Ryan's family paid her family off to keep quiet about the crime.

Disgusted, Ranger Bob calls the powwow session to an abrupt end. Then we see a hungry wolf as it discovers Ty hanging in the air. He tries to scare it away by being loud, but it doesn't seem scared by him. Then, when the wolf does run off, Ty realizes it was due to the sudden presence of the massive grizzly bear. Buh-bye, Ty!

The girls talk about the boys as they prepare to go to bed, and the boys do pretty much the same. Then, Trickster reveals that he brought a bear costume along on the hike, which he's going to use to scare the girls and/or Ranger Bob. Oh, and I think we might have broken Scab, as he's been developing confused feelings for Lola. The guy's so inept, he can't even do racism right!

Ranger Bob works all night on fixing the radio, but can't get anyone to reply to him on it. Then he wakes up the campers at sunrise, except for Scab and Bebe, who sleep despite the annoying sound of his whistle. After breakfast, he announces that he wants the group to remain together, while he hikes around in an attempt to locate Ty and Kiki.

While the park ranger is finding a sort-of trail of human remains to follow, Scab is busy huffing gasoline fumes to get high. Lola finds him, and they end up kissing. After a second kiss, Lola leaves him alone again. Is this movie allergic to sex?

Ranger Bob finds the trail that the missing teens explored, and begins to retrace their steps. When he doesn't return that night, the rest of the group make another fire, and go through Ranger Bob's cabin for food, alcohol and supplies.

Another encounter session around the fire reveals that Scab has a very bad addiction to inhalants, and that one of his closest friends died from inhaling cooking spray. Bebe also reveals that she was falsely accused of shoplifting, although she claims that it was a friend who had secretly shoved something intro her purse, and that she was framed.

Trickster tries to lighten the mood by making another reference to draining his dragon, but Bebe proudly declares that she knows that there is no actual dragon. You go, girl! As Trickster heads into the cabin, he hears something moving around in the woods near him, but can't tell what it might be.

Ranger Bob finds part of Kiki's face on the ground, and knows that he's on the right trail. As he picks up the pace, Trickster emerges from the cabin in his bear costume. Then Ranger Bob finds what's left of Ty, and spots the wolf sitting nearby, snacking on another piece of Ty. That's the thing...Eating Ty food always makes you crave MORE Ty food! *rim shot*

Scab has found a place where he can huff gas fumes alone. He remains blissfully unaware of another presence until it's right in front of him, and the fumes have made him incredibly loopy. He mistakenly believes that the killer grizzly bear is just Trickster in a costume, and tries to pet him. Too late, he realizes his mistake.

Speaking of Trickster, he's heading toward the campers in his costume, and he tries to scare them with a roar. They all laugh, which just makes Trickster angry. He roars again, and sees them express actual fear. Too late to react, he realizes that the real bear is right behind him. With one massive paw, the grizzly decapitates Trickster.

The others scream, then take off and hide in one of the storage cabins. Bebe, Candy and Ryan get away, but Lola is dragged to her doom by the angry bear. We briefly see her trying to crawl to safety after that, but the lower half of her body is now obliterated.

Bebe starts to cry, and the bear starts to sniff at the walls of the structure. When the noises stop, Ryan grabs a heavy shovel, and opens a board in the wall to have a look. He announces that the bear is gone, turns back for a second look, and the grizzly then drags Ryan through the gap in the wood to devour him.

Ryan, badly mangled and with part of his scalp falling off, drags himself back through the opening for one last attempt at survival. He manages to give one of Bebe's boobs a squeeze, a bell dings, then he gets dragged away to get mauled again, with such force that his arms are severed from the rest of him. He'll take the secret of the breasts to his grave.

While they huddle together in the dark, Bebe and Candy begin to wonder how much time has passed. Candy picks up Ryan's arm, then steals his gold watch. The bear then smashes more wood out of the opening that Ryan had made, and attempts to snatch up both females at once. Bebe opens the door of the shack to escape, then locks Candy inside for the bear to have. As Candy screams, the scene fades to black...

The next morning, Ranger Bob returns to the campsite. He finds Bebe hiding under a table and gives her a hug. After she calms down and packs her bag, she asks the ranger if she can use his bathroom one more time before they leave. He agrees, then waits for her on the porch.

As soon as Ranger Bob leaves, Bebe drops the whole "nice girl" act. She goes through Candy's bag, stealing most of her stuff, then grabs the cell phone. Calling a friend, Bebe brags about being the only survivor, and even manipulating the ranger. When she talks about killing Ranger Bob with the gun she found, he overhears her. She walks outside, where the bear greets her with a swipe of the paw, and we see a bloody lump of silicone come flying out of her chest, and smack into a tree. The debate is over!

A news story tells us that the killings were blamed on the escaped convict, because Ranger Bob placed the bear costume in a place where it would look like he had worn it. In the final scene, Ranger Bob and the bear appear, promising to return in a year. THE END...?

Yeah, probably, since this was made back in 2007. Still, I have to give this movie credit where credit's due...the effects were impressive, there were 3 killers(4, if you include the wolf!), and the script kept me laughing. On purpose, even! I actually wouldn't mind seeing another movie with Ranger Bob as the antagonist. Including the extra point for the song, I'm giving Grizzly Park 4 killer trees outta 5! Ha!

And what did I learn after watching the movie?

-Love conquers all, even racism...but not huffing.

-National Parks are deadly places.

-Bears and wolves work well together!

Next up is either Asylum of the Damned, or Deepstar Six. And I promise to post it this week...I would have posted this yesterday, but I fell asleep during the Pats game(I've been getting up at around 4 in the morning the last several weeks...it caught up to me!). Sorry!!

Don't Let Him In

Well, this movie IS better than WatchUsDie.com, so at least there's that! Faint praise, but at least the bar was set fairly low...Anyway, settle in, crank up your DVD's and let's start watching Don't Let Him In! SPOILERS dead ahead...

Wow, a cast of nobodies. Awesome. There's a red hand(Quick, everybody sing "Red Right Hand"!) holding a syringe, in a room where surgical tools are literally dangling from the ceiling. A woman appears to be just waking up in this chamber of horrors, and she immediately pukes. Fun gal.

She watches as our mystery nutcase saws a hand off of a corpse at the wrist, and the woman tries to stand up. The killer speaks to her, but the words are verrrrrry distorted, probably because whatever he sedated her with is still in effect. She crawls away, and the killer begins a 10-second countdown. She gets outside, where she's surrounded by trees(Tree Movie!!!), and tries to stagger to a safe place before he follows her. He arrives outside, and he's clutching a cleaver in one hand. Then the titles comes up: DON'T LET HIM IN. Ooh, scary!

The next scene begins with a generic-sounding pop ballad, and we meet a young British couple, Paige and Calvin. He's some sort of accountant or banker, based on their quick chat. They're preparing for a little weekend getaway, and just waiting for Cal's sister to call to say that she's ready to go. Small group for a slasher flick: Let's hope they meet some folks along the way!

Anyway, Calvin calls his sister, Mandy, who looks hung over. He tells her to get her ass in gear, and she lies, telling him that she's ready to go. Next to her, a guy with a bad squint also wakes up. Yay, 2 more potential victims! Calvin hangs up the phone and cuts his finger at the kitchen sink, revealing that Paige is a nurse. Both of them seem to think that Mandy is a major flake.

Mandy gets off the phone, then prepares her latest boyfriend a fresh cup of coffee. She fumbles her way through an invitation to bring him along for the retreat in the countryside, but he seems reluctant. A quick text message telling him to make himself scarce, however, changes his mind in an instant, much to Mandy's delight.

When Calvin and Paige pull up to the curb, Mandy gives them the "good news". It turns out that the "boyfriend" is actually just some dude she met the previous night named Tristan. Calvin hesitantly allows her to drag him along, and they both pile into the car. As Calvin and Paige try to introduce themselves to Tristan, he rudely keeps checking his text messages. Sheesh, they're going to have a loooong weekend.

The trip to the country is to a secluded village, where Calvin and Mandy were raised. Along the way, they spot a bearded hitchhiker, but Tristan abruptly announces that he won't travel in the same vehicle as the stranger, so they keep driving. He's an ass; I hope he dies early on.

Mandy complains that she needs to pee, so they pull over. While she darts into the woods, Calvin asks Tristan what he does for a living. Tristan says that he's in the stock market, then he gets interrupted by a phone call. While he barks orders at the person on the other end, Paige and Calvin agree that he lacks people skills, and that Mandy will soon grow tired of his attitude.

Speaking of Mandy, she hears something approaching her spot while she's urinating. A cute brunette appears suddenly, then Tristan also pops up from out of nowhere. So much for privacy. The new girl is a wanderer with the unlikely name of Emer. She goes back with them to their car, and they all learn that  she's been living in the forest for a year. Emer, the woodland nymph. Sure.

They ask her how the locals are, and Emer admits that she doesn't  see the townsfolk very often. She also claims that there's been a negative presence in the forest, which makes the cynical Tristan laugh. She offers to read his palm, then has a bad reaction to what she sees. She abruptly advises them all to return to the city, and she marches back into the woods without another word.

At the cottage, The women realize that they forgot to pack some things, and Tristan offers to hike up the road to a store they passed on the way. Mandy offers to accompany him, but he asks her not to "crowd" him. Wow, this romantic getaway sure has cooled off in a hurry, huh?

While they unpack the kitchen, Paige and Calvin insult Mandy's taste in men and refer to her as a slut. She's standing in the doorway, listening to the whole thing. As Calvin lamely tries to explain that he was just kidding, Mandy runs out of the room. Right on cue, a police officer arrives on a bicycle. A bicycle.

He introduces himself as Sergeant Utley, the local law enforcement. Who rides a Huffy 10-Speed. Hell, I'm surprised by the lack of a pink basket, or training wheels! He's obviously a bad-ass.

After the lighthearted introductions and banter about fishing prowess, Utley turns serious. It seems that there have been a string of killings in the area lately, and the press has dubbed the murderer The Tree Surgeon. Why? Well, he apparently likes to dissect his victims, then hang the remains in the trees. Nice.

Then Utley describes the most recent crime scene: A teacher was having her art students drawing nature scenery in the woods, and one lonely girl was illustrating a gory crime scene, complete with a severed torso and entrails. The teacher was about to reprimand the girl, but then realized that she had stumbled right into The Tree Surgeon's latest display.

Mandy gets back as Utley finishes the tale, and he leaves the trio to argue over whether or not they should head home. Against Mandy's wishes, they decide to stay for the weekend. Good thing, otherwise there wouldn't be a movie to watch.

Night falls, and we see Emer humming as she lazily strolls past the trees. A log rolls toward her, and she stops to look around, clearly hearing the sound of heavy breathing. Emer continues on her way, hears a loud growl, and removes a knife from her pants. As she makes a hasty retreat she trips, and the growling seems to be coming from every direction. A hand raises a blade in the air, and it's bye-bye, Emer.

Calvin's now chopping up some firewood. He hears Emer's scream, then nervously returns to the small house, where Mandy begs him to go out and search for Tristan. He kids her that Tristan's probably already dead, and she forces him to go searching with her, leaving Paige alone in the secluded cabin.

While they walk, Mandy yells out Tristan's name, and Calvin jokes that The Tree Surgeon will hear her. That Cal, he's quite the kidder! (He sort of has a good point, though I hate to admit it.) As if to prove his point, they both see a bloody hand print on a nearby tree. Mandy urges Cal to keep moving.

A fog bank rolls in, and they creep ahead. Tristan then jumps out from behind a tree, and calls them "pussies" when they get scared. He holds up the grocery bag, then just grins like an idiot. Calvin moves toward the tree for a closer look at the hand print, and confirms that it is actually blood on the tree.

Back at the house, Paige builds up the fire, completely unaware of a presence lurking just outside the nearest window. A series of low thumps cause her to go have a look. I'm going to just assume that this is the last we see of Paige.

Mandy whines that the men are moving too fast, and insists that they wait for her to catch up with them. Then Paige calls, and begs them to hurry back, because someone is trying to break into the house. They pick up the pace.

Paige hears more frantic noises at the front door, and finds an ax to wield. Lucky for her, this time it's her friends. She lets them in, and shows them another bloody hand print on the front window of the house. Then the owner of the bloody hand stumbles into the house, where he collapses onto the living room floor.

He's the guy they drove by earlier. He has a nasty open wound on his left abdomen, and Paige lets her instincts as a nurse kick in. His wallet informs them that his name is Sean, and Paige has Mandy fetch her some boiling water, a first aid kit, some sewing needles, and a reel of fishing line to use as thread.

The only person who refuses to help Sean is Tristan, who simply eases back on some furniture to watch the scene play out. Sean indicates that he wants a nearby bottle of liquor, and takes a good, long swig from it. Then Calvin offers his belt to bite down on, and the procedure begins.

Sean struggles and moans, but they hold him still long enough for Paige to sew the gaping hole shut. Pretty painful, if his scream is any indication. Eventually, they all find a way to fall asleep.

Paige and Calvin discuss the possibility of getting him to a hospital, but Paige isn't convinced that his condition is stable enough to make such a journey yet. Then we see Esme trapped in the killer's weird cave, and she appears to be dead. Then she loudly gasps for air.

The next morning looks downcast, and Mandy is in a mood to bitch and moan about how rotten the weekend has become. Tristan agrees, but attempts to make her calm again. He then ruins the moment by answering another mysterious business call. While they're having so much fun, let go see how Sean is doing.

Well, he's awake. Paige is sitting with him, and they have a talk about his injuries. She tells him to move slowly at first, and come downstairs for breakfast when he feels up to it. Then Tristan rudely tells her that she should be charging Sean some type of rent.

At the breakfast table, Sean enters wearing Tristan's bathrobe. They make general introductions, with both Mandy and Tristan grumbling about Sean living in THEIR bedroom. Oh, just grow up, you two.

Calvin gets  right to the point, asking Sean how he received his injuries. He tells them that, while he was hiking, a mysterious attacker stabbed him, leading into a scuffle. Sean got away, but the altercation made his pain worse, so he found the house  as a last resort for assistance. Heck, maybe he survived a meeting with The Tree Surgeon!

He doesn't want to report the incident to the police, because he avoids the locals. Tristan interrogates him about his personal background, and Sean admits that he quit a lucrative insurance job. While mocking him, Tristan confesses that his recently-deceased parents left him a large fortune.

Calvin invites Sean to fish with him while he rests up, but Paige manages to rope him into taking Tristan instead. Neither of them seem pleased with that prospect. Isn't this a fun weekend trip?

The guys end up at a body of water that looks like someone had a fit of diarrhea. They should name this scene "2 guys, 1 pole", if you know what I mean. If they catch anything, they better not eat it.

Mandy sits next to Sean on the couch, boring her with pics from her camera. Paige finally rescues the poor guy, asking him if he'd like to take a leisurely stroll outside. He happily agrees, leaving behind a very angry Mandy. Oh well.

Sean asks Paige how she met Calvin, and it's not a fun tale. He had been choking in a restaurant, and she leaped forward to perform an emergency tracheotomy. Love at first stab.

Sean removes a photo of his wife from his wallet, and shows it to Paige. He tells her that his wife's name is Cathy, and that she and their kids are waiting for him to return home. Awwww, how sweet! Wait...so why would he be wandering around in the woods, if he was supposed to be heading home? Strange...

Calvin gives Tristan pointers on how to fish, and Tristan looks like he'd rather be having a root canal. As they fish, Tristan tells Calvin that his parents recently died in a house fire. Then his stupid phone rings again. He hands his fishing pole to Calvin, then just starts wandering away to take his call.

The caller needs a password from Tristan, something about covering up his tracks. The fire was no accident, and the voice on the phone is someone trying to help Tristan stay out of prison for committing arson. Sadly, the phone goes dead before he can give the needed password.

He goes back to Calvin, and requests the use of his phone to send the text. Before he can complete the message, the phone rings. It's Paige, telling them that Sean has offered to make them dinner that night.

Calvin finishes the call, then sees the unsent text message. He asks Tristan about it, then Tristan moves away to go find a place to pee. When Calvin tries to call Paige with a warning, Tristan strangles him with some fishing line. Then he bashes Calvin over the head and shoves a pile of rice down his throat. Before he dies, Calvin coughs up a wad of rice onto Tristan's face, so he bashes poor Calvin's head with a rock.

Night falls, and still no sign of Calvin and Tristan. As Paige makes up her mind to go find them, Tristan stomps into the house. He lies to her, saying that Calvin stayed behind to continue fishing, and that he caught several large fish already. Paige secretly confides to Sean that she's worried that Tristan is lying. To set her mind at ease, Sean agrees to go do a quick search for Calvin. "Hey, Calvin! Here, boy!" *whistles*

Anyhoo...Armed with only a flashlight, Sean calls out Calvin's name while he wanders around in the dark. He hears Calvin's phone ringing, finds it, and answers it. It's Paige. As he explains that he found the phone but no sign of Calvin, he runs into quite a sight: Calvin's body, with his mouth crammed full of maggots. Sean rushes back to the house.

While Paige and Mandy fret over what Sean might have discovered, Tristan tries to sow seeds of doubt in their minds, implying that perhaps Sean might have harmed Calvin while he was outside. However, when he states that they don't even know who Sean is, Paige points out that the same could be said of him. Ha! Take THAT, killer!

Sean bursts in, and just tells them that he found Calvin dead. As Tristan tries to sound defensive, Sean suggests that Paige should call the cops. She gets through, but then the call gets disconnected. She tries to call them back, but the call won't go through.

Mandy goes into a sort of rambling shock, and Tristan attacks Sean. As Tristan starts to rant and rave about dead bodies and maggots crawling out of Calvin's eyes, Sean quietly responds that the maggots were actually in Calvin's mouth. Then Tristan starts to sway and moan, and the others watch as a maggot crawls out of his eyelid, then drops into his drink. Whoops.

Paige instinctively snatches up the ax, and strikes the wall, because Tristan manages to dodge out of her way. He knocks her to the ground and gets the ax, but Mandy stabs him in the leg with her trusty knife. On his way to the floor, he lands on Sean, who gets the ax right in his back. This movie suddenly took a left turn into Apeshitville!

Paige maces Tristan in the eyes as he attempts to stand up, and she pushes him out the door. She swiftly locks the door behind her, and then checks to see if Sean is still alive. Then Paige gets a kitchen knife, gives it to a sobbing Mandy, and tells her not to let Tristan in.

She pauses for a minute to mourn her boyfriend, then goes upstairs. While she's gone, Tristan urges Mandy to open the door. He tells her that Sean is the real threat, and then he swears not to harm her. Being a complete dumbass, Mandy believes him and opens the front door.

Shock of all shocks, Tristan murders Mandy, stabbing her sloooooowly after a big hug. He then drops her body onto the couch, and goes after Paige. She ambushes him, then stabs him in the shoulder. After a brief fight, she thinks that she knocked him out, but he gets up again. He raises the ax to kill her, but then Sean jumps on his back, and manages to slit his throat.

With Tristan now dead, Sean crumples to the floor again. Paige offers to call his wife, and finds his wallet. A closer look at his wife, "Cathy", reveals that the pictures were folded in half. The husband in them isn't Sean at all...

Oh crap. Paige drops the pictures, as well as the driver's license of the man that "Sean" murdered, and he rises up behind her. As they stare at each other, The Tree Surgeon begins to laugh...

He knocks her out, and she comes to her senses in that cave we saw in the first scene. He drugs her, she eventually gets free, blah blah blah we saw this part already. He tells her that lives beneath a hollowed-out tree that he worships, and kills his victims as a sacrifice to the tree. Killer tree!

Then he cuts her loose, gives her that ten-count again, and she tries to stagger away to safety. He drugged her with something called ketamine, and she's pretty groggy. He emerges from his lair as she limps away, and she starts to get her energy back.

He casually strolls after her, and Paige soons emerges from the woods, into what looks like a lumber mill. It's deserted, though, and her cries for assistance go unanswered. She finds a pitchfork to use as a weapon, then hides behind some bales of hay. Paige hears someone moving in her direction and thrusts her weapon at them--only to realize that she just murdered Utley, the bike cop.

She sees The Tree Surgeon coming, and yanks the pitchfork out of the sarge, and he keels over. As the killer corners her, Paige knocks him down, then tries to finish him off with a quick stab. Nope, he still lives.

The Tree Surgeon lifts her off of her feet, then impales Paige on a large spike. She drags him with her, and they both get to be spiked to death. But before they both die, Paige laughs in his face. THE END

Yeah, low budget and a little slow, but still miles better as a movie than last week's entry. The gore was also surprisingly decent, and that weird thing with the maggot was effective. And we got 2 killers, for the price of 1! A decent effort, at the very least....And an actual killer tree subplot! 3 killer trees out of 5 for Don't Let Him In.

And what did this one teach me?

-New lovers should never be trusted.

-The English countryside is a deathtrap, filled with women named Emer.

-If your local lawman rides a bicycle, you need to live in a bigger town!

Next up on my list: the recent remake of Evil Dead!!! Sweet!

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!

The Forest

Well, after the fiasco of dealing with The Sorority's crappy DVD, I was a little apprehensive about getting another low-budget slasher. However, The Forest at least PLAYED on my laptop, so there's already 1 point in its' favor. The bad news? No sound. *(see footnote after the recap)
SPOILERS follow, possibly...but only if I'm the world's luckiest guesser...

Okay, so I'm going to have to GUESS what's going on.....ready? The silent movie begins with a couple at what looks like a national park, hiking. The credits are shown as they hike. Exciting. Oh, the movie stars such luminaries as Stafford Morgan(wasn't he a savings & loan?), Tony Gee(I hope he married Louise Whiz!), and Corky Pigeon. I shit you not, that's someone's actual name. Dear god, this one may destroy my fragile mind.

The woman hears a noise. Lucky for her. I never get to! We get a few POV shots of the killer watching the couple. Again, the woman hears "something", or maybe her Spidey sense is tingling. Who knows? As they (hilariously!) decide to hike faster, the killer runs behind them from one hiding spot to another. Looking constipated, the woman freaks out. The guy tells her to go behind tree and use a pine cone to wipe with I guess. She begs him for HIS feminine hygiene products and he agrees. She stomps off, and he gets a knife to the gut THE SECOND she goes offscreen. Or maybe the crotch. He's wearing so much friggin' denim, it's hard to tell.

Debbie Downer comes back, and finds the body. Increasing the frown to Chloe-on-24-like proportions, she panics and begins running. The killer apparently has very little depth perception, as he stabs a tree instead of her. Then, in a move that would have impressed Houdini, our killer grabs her from behind a tree, while showing her the knife IN FRONT OF the tree. And she couldn't outrun this rocket scientist WHY??? He shows her the knife before stabbing her to death.

The movie then switches to a montage of traffic jams. Again, no joke. We get to watch scene after endless scene of cars bumper-to-bumper in heavy traffic. Fun times. 2 guys who look like Robert Reed(the dad on The Brady Bunch) and Rick Springfield(has-been rockstar) or maybe Adrian Zmed(T.J. Hooker) are sitting in the traffic jam. Mike Brady has his arm on the back of pseudo-Zmed's seat, making me wonder if it actually IS Reed(although he played the family man on Brady, Reed was gay in real-life). The guys are apparently NOT them, because they pick up their wives and take them to Papa Gino's.

At the restaurant, no one notices Mike Brady's head smoking. They're too busy pretending to give a crap about something one of the girls is saying. She looks like a cross between Kirsten Dunst and a Muppet. The other girl tries flirting with Mike Brady, and he just tells her "something suddenly came up". Hey, no sound and it's my recap: they say what I tell 'em to. The girls get really drunk, probably after realizing this movie will bring their acting careers to a grinding halt, and Mike Brady demonstrates how he used to put Bobby to bed.

Breaking your date's ribs is apparently not a good idea, because the next scene shows the girls packing their suitcases to try their luck as showgirls instead of Hollywood starlets. ZmedHead kisses Muppet-girl, and the other one stares dreamily into Brady's eyes while reminding herself to get a blood test done the minute she gets home. The SECOND the girls leave, the 2 guys hold hands and plan a trip together. Geez, what the hell kinda movie did I rent? They have the most boring car-chase in history, which ends with the guys giving up the chase to stop at a gas station. It's probably the gas station most of them ended up working at after making this movie.

At the gas station the guys run into Andy Richter's dad. He agrees to look over their job applications if the whole "movie star" thing doesn't pan out. While the guys are re-thinking their future, the girls(let's call 'em Thelma and Louise....Thelma can be the Muppet.) arrive at THE FOREST! Louise puts on a vest made out of Leslie Nielsen's back-hair, and off they go. As the guys are FINALLY finishing their job interviews, Thelma and Louise walk past the tree that the Keebler elves all live in. They climb rocks, they jump over logs--hey, I guess all those feminine hygiene ads were right! Although I can't hear the dialogue, I'm willing to bet it went something like:

THELMA: Where the hell are we?????
LOUISE: i dunno, the film crew left about 3 hours ago. If cell phones ever get invented, maybe we can call a cab.

The guys end up on one of those narrow, winding roads that only ever seem to exist in this type of movie. They somehow find the girls' vehicle and park next to it, as the girls are setting up camp waaaaay the eff away. The guys put on backpacks and pretend to be David Naughton and Griffin Dunne in An American Werewolf In London. They meet the poor man's Burt Reynolds, moonlighting as a State Trooper, and he looks about as useless as the REAL Burt. Having no trail to follow or way to let the girls know they've arrived, the guys decide to just start walking in a random direction. That works out about as well as you'd imagine.

Cue nightfall. The girls are discussing the possibility of becoming lesbian cave hermits, if their boyfriends don't arrive soon. While they dreamily contemplate throwing each other into the fire they built, 2 ghost-children, a boy and a girl, show up. Again, I'm not screwing with your minds, this actually happens. They look like refugees from the Little House On the Prairie set. Who are they? Beats me. The boy apparently wants to have a little camp-orgy, but the ghost-girl doesn't seem into it. He tells her about his blue balls, and Thelma and Louise figure out that they're not alone.

ANOTHER ghost shows up, this time a woman. She has a scratch where Bill Clinton's desk apparently hit her forehead. Wow, what a crappy way to die. She warns Thelma and Louise about accepting internships in Washington and POOF! she vanishes. The girls decide to start attending AA meetings and try to leave their campsite, but are blocked by a moth. Oooooh, scary!

The guys get tired of wandering around in the dark, and decide to just let the killer get the girls. At the same time, the ghost-kids go talk to their dad, who turns out to be Will Sasso's version of Kenny Rogers. He picks up a knife and decides to take care of the girls, all while singing "Kill the Wabbit" under his whiskey-strong breath. After holding a knife above one of the girls for about a fortnight, she FINALLY wakes up and sees...the ghost-kids again. Damn. They warned Thelma and Louise, dagnabbit!! No fair!

Thelma and Louise decide the best course of action would be to stand up and just look around like the 2 useless meatbags they are. Louise runs off after a Shatneresque scene of emoting and rubbing ghost-blood off her forehead. Give that gal an Oscar....Mayer weiner.

Kenny chases one girl, but she outwits him with her knack for general stupidity. He goes after the one who stayed behind instead, making no attempt to hide or sneak up on her. She somehow STILL manages to miss seeing him approach RIGHT BESIDE HER. She does finally notice the crazy old man holding the knife, and reacts by just standing there. Dingbat. He stabs AT her several times, but I guess we have to use our imaginations, because other than a few fake blood-stains, there doesn't seem to be a mark on her. Even while slitting her throat the camera switches to a different angle. Laaaaame.

Louise sees her die and decides to run around, in the dark, in THE FOREST the killer knows like the back of his hand. Smart. Kenny chases her, and the chase is so long, they go from night to day. Rather than let him get her, Louise jumps down a waterfall and makes a swim for the opposite embankment. Kenny watches her for a minute, then chooses to go back to fetch Thelma before pursuing her.

The guys(remember them?) are still standing in the middle of nowhere, ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over a compass. A COMPASS. Dumbasses. It starts raining, and I pause to wonder if the movie heard me wish bad luck upon them. The dingleberries find shelter in a cave, and it's the cave Kenny lives in. OF COURSE. They briefly grope each other's chests, only to find the ghost-kids watching them. Before they can traumatize the kids too much, Kenny comes back. He decides to invite them to dinner, apparently forgetting that he's in a slasher movie.

While chowing down on Thelma's ribs, Kenny tells them about his plan to open a chain of restaurants, and call them Kenny Roger's Roasters, using campers as the main course. Wisely, the guys decide to turn down his offer and refuse to invest in his business plan. In a weirdly placed flashback scene, Kenny is shown walking in on his wife and her lover, a repairman of some kind. They were having an affair, and had been forcing his kids into the bedroom closet while they screwed each others' brains out.

He chokes the wife to death, and knocks her forehead into the bedside table, which explains the blood on her forehead as a ghost. He then goes to stab the lover to death, but they end up brawling instead. In a chase scene that defies logic, the boyfriend keeps escaping the killer, only to find the killer has somehow managed to get ahead of him again, each time brandishing a new weapon. HUH???

Whatever. The killer eventually corners the wife's lover and forces him up against a circular saw, imbedding the teeth of it into the guy's chest. The kids watch him bury the bodies, and then he drags them away, presumably to kill them as well. Hey, I'm doing pretty damn good for a guy with no sound.

The Idiot Brothers decide to spend the night. Because no one would refuse shelter from a guy who just told them that he murdered his family and then became a cannibal. Yeah, pull the OTHER leg, movie. Further solidifying my belief that they are Robert Reed and Adrian Zmed, the 2 doofuses (doofii?) sleep together on the floor in adjoining sleeping bags. They even have a very "Brady" talk before bed. Yeesh.

They somehow survive the night, and pack up early the next morning to leave. Ol' Whatsherface also wakes up the next morning, after having slept under a rock. Good hiding place, soon-to-be-dead-chick!

The guys waste more screentime searching the rocks for the girls. Why the rocks? Who knows? Who cares? They eventually find the campsite, with no sign of Thelma or Louise. They backtrack to Kenny's cave, which is also now empty. Louise, while aimlessly wandering around in THE FOREST!!!!!!, sees the ghost kids again. They distract her long enough for Kenny to catch up, because that just makes no effing sense in the least. (At this point, my laptop still didn't give me the movie's volume, but an annoying whistle started up. Great.)

Anyway, Louise slides down a hill. She hides just as Kenny shows up, and she chooses rocks and trees that don't conceal her very much at all. I say let Kenny kill the chick. Do the world a favor, Kenny. Kill a dumbass, and save us from this cheap-ass movie. The movie then grinds to a halt so we can watch the guys do laundry. I swear.

The killer has found Louise, and while she's hiding under some rocks, he's sitting above them, waiting for her to emerge. She must've made a sound or something, because he stops gnawing on her friend's flesh to look around a bit. Dude, you got some Thelma stuck in yer teeth.

Mike Brady leaves, probably to get help, and leaves Zmed-for-brains at the campsite. In case the girls come back, I guess. Oh, and ZmedHead now has a headband. ZmedHead, I dub thee Rambozo!

Brady injures himself in the dumbest way possible and has a piece of bone poking up through his leg. He ain't going anywhere. The ghost-kids meet up with Louise, probably to discuss why late '70's/early '80's fashion sucked so much. Kenny hears them and decides to keep tracking his prey.

Brady stops hop-limping away, so that he can have himself a good, manly cry. Night falls, and Rambozo waits for someone to find him. "Someone" turns out to be the killer's wife. She freaks out Rambozo before vanishing. Rambozo is further unsettled by the approach of the killer, even though they appear to be in different time zones(Rambozo's scenes are at night, by the fire; Kenny's scenes are in daylight.)

Kenny does exactly what he did before: he walks out in plain view, and waits for his victim to miss seeing him. Luckily, our guy is(barely) smarter than Thelma was. They scuffle, and both men drop their weapons. Rambozo seems to have the upper hand, until they both fall in the water. The cannibal drowns him.

While wandering around, Louise encounters the kids again. She lets them lead her to safety, and instead they take her right to the spot where the killer is preparing to cut up Rambozo. Nice kids. She freaks out, and the killer hears her. Before he can kill her though, the kids manage to stop him. They then help her to get away, hopefully to find Cryin' Mike Brady.

Using a heavy tree branch as a makeshift crutch, Brady eventually falls down. The killer sees him fall, and begins making his approach. They have a showdown, but Brady is caught off-balance and the killer tries to focus his attacks on the injured leg. With Brady helpless on the ground, the killer swoops in for the finishing move, but Brady rolls away at the last second. Quick recap:A guy evades a mass-murdering hillbilly cannibal by ROLLING SLOWLY AWAY. Then we see Louise grab one of the dropped knives. She lunges at the killer, who sees her as his dead wife and panics. She plunges the knife into his chest, killing him and ending his cannibal murder spree.

The kids show up one last time to say goodbye to the couple. Then the ghost-Mom shows up. Geez, this is turning into Scooby-friggin'-Doo. They tell her the kids are gone, and she whooshes back to the killer's cave. As she watches, he hugs the 2 kids and they all vanish. THE END. During the credits, they show the now-deserted cave, then a scene out in a field. Wow. 1 and a half trees out of 5. The 1's a gift, as thanks for the lack of audio. I can only imagine how dumb this shit would've been if I had to have the full experience....

So, what has this week's crapfest taught me?
-Deafness can be a blessing.
-A movie about a cannibal who slaughters and eats about 8 people can somehow be boring as hell, and almost completely devoid of good kills.
-Adrian Zmed and Robert Reed reallllllly dug each other. Yikes!

I think the next movie coming in is The Watcher, but I'm not going through the hassle of my crappy wireless signal to double-check, so don't hold me to that. See you next week!










*(a quick footnote---towards the end, my laptop overheated and shut down. When I rebooted, the sound on the movie worked again, so I rewatched this thing. While I messed up some of the story with my guesswork---Brady and the "Louise" are married and on the brink of a divorce---frankly, my guesses were more fun than the actual film...Some of the other stuff I got wrong as well, obviously...The kids died of "sadness"? The guy WASN'T their father?? If this POS ever gets remade, they need to re-write most of the "plot", and make the kills more interesting.)