onsdag 4 september 2013

The Final terror (1983)

I will admit, The Final terror was a really positive surprise. I was expecting a straight forward slasher, this having been shot just a year after Friday the 13th and with what on the surface seems like a very similar plot and the poster didn't make me think any differently with its lovely hysteric depiction of a young couple running away from something.

And sure enough, it starts out with a whole collection of cliches. A young couple is killed in the woods, we skip forward to a group of youths about to head out into the very same forest complete with possibly deranged handyman, a campfire retelling of a horrible event that happened years ago and people going missing. But then the movie transforms into something else. Instead we get a movie about the remaining people trying to survive, hunted by an unknown assailant and we find ourselves watching something much more similar to Deliverance or Rituals. And it does quite a good job with it too all the way to its maybe not particulary surprising but still very exciting conclusion.

If you went into this expecting a slasher I would not hold it against you if you were dissapointed but I quite like the direction the movie takes, even if you take into account the fact that the exploitation factor is quite low. There is very little gore and nudity on display here, the body count is not very high but we are rewarded with quite a lot of atmosphere as the survivors trek through the rainsoaked thick forest followed by something that wants to kill them. The characters might be a bit standard but most of the acting is fairly good with some familiar faces like Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward and Joe Pantoliano before they hit the big time (and I was relieved when Rachel Ward actually has a british accent).

So, in short, a good watch that might not be what you would expect it to be. If you like movies like Deliverance or Rituals you'd probably enjoy this too. I watched this on a fairly poor rip from a vhs which makes some of the nightscenes a chore to watch so I really hope that this will pop up on dvd or blu ray soon.

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