Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

January 2008 activity

Total Log Entries: 53

Total Comments: 41

Full Archive

Advertisements

Don’t Go in the Woods / Don’t Go in the woods…alone / USA / 1981

Those that would dismiss this effort as bottom-of-the-barrel amateur trash have never seen Don’t Answer the Door, Don’t Open Till Christmas, or any number of other equally reprehensible Don’t films floating about in the wasteland of knock-off slasher horrordom.

Interspersed with scenes of hikers scrambling up mountainsides and detailing the finer rules of camping in the wild (“don’t go in the woods alone” is one of them, along with “when you’re lost, go uphill”), we are treated to a series of unexplained deaths that occur entirely without context (the best of which involves a woman cocooned in a sleeping bag and strung up a tree while her friend gets it). And even though a police presence is eventually introduced, the slapdash quality of the film continues unabated, as victim after victim falls to the grimy hand of the maniacal woodsman, often in surprisingly brutal fashion, with little narrative context getting in the way of the assault.

Sure, this movie is bad, full of terrible acting, irrelevant plot details, sloppy camera work, and non-existent production values. But it has an admirable spirit that shines through the dross, and a wonderful humor that wins you over in the end. And besides, how can you dislike a film that includes a man shouting “he’s aiming at you!” after watching his girlfriend take multiple spears to the body?

by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Vestron Video VHS
30 Jan 2008 10:41 PM | Submit Comment

Submit Comment

Please note that your email address will never be displayed on this page.

HTML is enabled; line breaks (<br />) and paragraphs (<p>) are automatically converted. Apostrophes, ellipses, em- and en-dashes, and quotes are also automatically formatted.

Recent Updates