Rish Outfield's reviews
You know, just the thought that I would rent a movie with Adrian Zmed scares me. The rest of this movie wasn't too frightening, though. I liked the basic story: a bunch of young river-rafting forest ranger adventurer-types go up into the woods (with their girlfriends!), but find that there's a maniacal forest-dweller watching and stalking them. One by one, they're hunted down, until they try to turn the tables on their attacker (in a scene that was actually quite cool).
Written by Ronald Shusett, the co-writer of Alien and Total Recall, and directed by Andy Davis, who'd go on to bring us The Fugitive and Collateral Damage, it also starred some future famous folk, namely Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, and Joe Pantiololanio (yeah, I know, but it's a REALLY hard name to spell!). All in all, though, it was a pretty mediocre horror film, not deserving of praise, but definitely not terrible. The acting was alright, it wasn't dull, and some of the dialogue was quite good, in fact–-and funny, at least at the beginning. It really should've had nudity in it, though. Hey, hey, hey, before you condemn me as a mindless, uncultured pervert, hear me out. Some of these chicks were hot, there was ample opportunity, with skinny dipping, attractive girls, and plenty of romantic pairing off. Besides, the cover art seemed to be promising a Russ Meyer film (. . . and tyranist asked how this ended up in our stack).
One problem I had with the film was how nasty and unlikable most of the characters were. Every ten seconds, another character gave a monologue about how the others were being stupid, or insensitive, or overreacting, or underreacting. It made me want the bodycount to rise, and quickly. Often it was too dark, and there was some somewhat annoying camerawork, which annoyed tyranist even more than me. There were very few scares, practically no gore, and another one of those killers who was everywhere all at once and always knew where the victim is running (which is fine when it's a supernatural baddie, but a little annoying other times). When the film ended, I felt like shrugging and saying, "Hmmm, what else you got?"
I'd Recommend It To: '80s Killer In Woods Slasher fans only.
Note: By the way, I AM a mindless, uncultured pervert, I just don't like to be condemned.

The tyranist's thoughts
I'm not really sure why this movie didn't get a bad title skull. What is the final terror? Was it part of this movie and I just missed it, or is it something else that I'm just supposed to understand because it has cultural significance. Either way, I found very little terror at all in this one.
An early "urban legend come to life" movie that has some really neat bits and a lot of not so neat stuff. Imagine a summer camp slasher where they don't stay at a camp. The set up and fundamental premise were okay, but I felt somewhat confused at times when trying to understand why things were happening.
Another drawback is that there are large portions of the movie shot at night. Not all of them are too dark to see, but almost without fail, the parts that are supposed to be scary are definitely too dark to see. Does no one get how this lessens the effectiveness of the scare?
Watch for all your favourite stars in this one. Well, a couple anyway. I've never been a Daryl Hannah fan but it was kind of cool to see Joe Pantoliano years before he would have a role that people could recognize him for. I guess this one is okay, but really it is just pretty mediocre. Aside from a few cool booby traps and a couple of interesting moments there isn't much to see here.