Don’t Go In The Woods (1981)
Or, Don’t Watch This Film Sober!
Don’t Go In The Woods was the first ever video nasty to jump out of the pages of The Dark Side magazine and into my crazed mind! The cover art fascinated me beyond belief. The hand-drawn image of the severely beaten (and presumed dead) woman, the backdrop of an eerie campfire, topped with a tagline of “Everyone has nightmares about the ugliest way to die!” gave me a glimpse of hope that greats like Friday The 13th and The Burning had a new camp-slasher flick to challenge them. How wrong I was.
By the time I finally got hold of the Uncut 25th Anniversary edition many years later, I’d trawled through hundreds of terrible reviews. Did that put me off? Nope, slasher movies have always been dumped on - but it did awaken me to the possibility that it may not be “all that” …
Plot? Simple: a killer that looks like he’s skinned Bigfoot and raided Conan The Barbarian’s wardrobe stalks and kills woodland campers. Oh, and a few cops get thrown into the mix at some point to solve the case.
A film featuring direly comical gore and high-school-project FX should never have made it onto the DPP video nasty banned list. The acting is unbelievably bad and the dialogue is less delivered than spewed out. When one unhappy camper accidentally kills another after mistaking them for the killer, he looks at him and screams “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”. This seriously has to be seen to be believed. Another scene features a couple of blades raining down blow after blow on a body, but instead of hearing flesh being pounded, hacked and torn, all you can hear is the sound of knocking on a large piece of wood where the victim’s mid-section should be.
When you think it couldn’t get any worse, the end credits are accompanied by a “score” that is a horrific (for the wrong reasons) take on The Teddy Bears Picnic. This is for video nasty purists only, but having said that, if you’re anything like me, reading this might make you want to see it even more.
- Morganonyx
TRAILER: “If you want it chopped off, just take it to the woods.”
Er, buy Don’t Go in the Woods? Someone’s got to.
