Backwoods (1988)

Obscure horror made just after the slasher era but has the looks like an early eighties slasher even as it isn't really a slasher. It's a typical hillbilly flick. It's rather hard to find this flick only available on VHS. And still people do search it even as it isn't all that good, face it, being obsessed by long black hair.The reason therefor lays in the fact that the first hour it's all about talking and characterisation. But I guess the director Dean Crow did knew about that fact and did put in some gratuitous full frontal nudity by one time actress Christine Noonan. It's only towards the end that this flick delivers the horror and even that doesn't look creepy at all. But the score used and the hissing of the geek (Jack O'Hara) gives it a special atmosphere. There aren't almost no effects used but when it does it is above mediocre for such kind of low budget flicks. Made by an unknown director in an era where horror was not done is the reason why this is so extremely hard to find. Still, if you do like hillbilly horror then this is a must see. For the other 'geeks' if you can grab it watch it, you certainly will enjoy the ending but overall a bit lame. Gore 0/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

If variety is the spice of life, then BACKWOODS is as bland as a bar of soap. Even though I wasn't born there, I will always consider Indiana my home state because I spent most of my childhood there. However, in all my years there, I never once heard mention of a movie that was made there, BACKWOODS. After watching it, I can see why.Jamie and Karen are a couple who bike into the woods to go camping. However, when they awake, they find a young girl choking and her father standing above her holding a shotgun. Jamie, being a doctor, rescues her and gets invited to the family homestead (a small house) out of gratitude. However, it turns out the family has a son named William who is a bit nutty. Well, Karen reminds William of his mother, which causes him to go on a homicidal rampage as he kills anyone who gets between the two. Will anyone survive the night? I'm usually not the biggest fan of the backwoods slashers, but a few have managed to stand out, like JUST BEFORE DAWN, HUNTER'S BLOOD, and RITUALS. BACKWOODS is a crowning example of why I try to avoid this type of slasher. Okay, so the acting is definitely really good, it does manage to build up some atmosphere, and the characters were somewhat likable. Actually, those three things are responsible for one of the stars I've awarded this movie. The other two are for a decent chase, a cool death to the killer, and an nicely ominous ending.Now onto what happened to the seven stars absent. The major complaint I have with this movie is how mind-numbingly, unbelievably BORING it is. Absolutely NOTHING happens for the first hour or so. The couple bike around, they talk with the forest ranger, they have dinner with the pa, Jamie and Pa go 'coon hunting, etc. Even when we ARE introduced to William, he really does nothing but peek in the windows at Karen. FINALLY he goes on a rampage with a half hour to spare. And when that happens, it's still boring because we've seen it all before, and there are more than thirty other flicks that do it a lot better than BACKWOODS.Aside from the rare spurt of entertainment, BACKWOODS should be chopped up for firewood. There are no interesting plot twists, no interesting characters, almost no interesting kills (the last one is alright), no memorable gore, no nothing. That's atrocious, BACKWOODS. Indiana should be ashamed.

The plot = A young couple travel throughout the country on they're bikes in search of a camping adventure, After they venture into the part of the woods that people in the town are scared off they come across an odd family with an even odder son.This is yet another in a long line of camping slashers that came out during the 1980's. Despite the theme of campers getting mixed up with an odd local family, it's actually somewhat different than what we usually get from this particular sub-genre. In fact it takes over an hour for anything to actually happen, during that time this movie just attempts to build the tension and flesh out the characters.But to be honest none of this worked in my opinion as this movie was just way to boring, and the cast were just not interesting for me to care about. Even the so-called pay off didn't work By the time things start rolling it's already an hour in and I've almost lost entirely all interest. The attempt to build character development was a worthy, but failed, effort for a flick in this genre.All in all "Backwoods" is just way too slow paced to be considered interesting, cause by the time anything happens you would have likely lost interest.

Yes, this movie was just ok. I'm tired of seeing "mountain people" of Kentucky get made the crazy people of every stupid woodsy horror movie. It's so overdone. There's always some father who has an attitude about "his way" and he makes moonshine and hunts 'coons and carries a shotgun everywhere he goes and wears dirty overalls and an old hat (but shaves clean everyday!??) And then there's always some passive little white-dressed blond girl who never says anything and is really scared of everyone but is very nice and friendly anyway. and then there's ALWAYS some deranged crazy son that the father doesn't like anymore who likes to kill for the pleasure. I feel like i've seen this movie a million times. It's exactly like this other movie that I can't remember the title of, but in the other one, there were two brothers. But it was exactly the same. I was just waiting for them to finish the stereotype with some incest jokes (it was good that they didn't).So this movie is JUST OK. the only part I thought was funny was when the father makes the male camper sit inside with him and drink moonshine. they have a funny conversation that actually seemed a LITTLE realistic. But other than that, this movie was lame.