Entry Nine: The Final Terror (1983)

The Final Terror (1983)

Dir: Andrew Davis

"Without knowing, they have awakened an unknown force.  Can anyone survive?"

Councilors Mike (Mark Metcalf, Seinfeld's "Maestro") and Melanie (Cindy Harrell) take a group of JD kid screw-ups into an isolated area of the woods on an Outward Bound-type adventure.  Being responsible adults, Mike and Mel slip off to fuck in a waterfall and are slaughtered by an unseen assailant.  The kids (including Adrian "Bachelor Party" Zmed, Rachel "The Thorn Birds" Ward and Daryl Hannah) must use only their (limited) wits and whatever nature provides to defend against this menace, which seems to simply disappear into the woods.  Is it crazy, irritating camp maintenance man Eggar (a very young, very thin Joe Pantoliano)?  Is it an escapee from the local asylum?  Is it (as the ludicrous marketing campaign insinuated) some sort of alien being?  The kids build Rambo-style traps using the local flora, perpetual screw-up Zorich (John Friedrich, who's really good but retired from acting after this) takes some strange mushrooms and freaks out and the whole thing ends with a body count much lower than you'd expect.

This fun mash-up of First Blood, Deliverance, and the slasher movies popular at the time is the directorial debut of Andrew Davis (who went on to helm Code of Silence, motherfucking Under Siege and The Fugitive), and he does a nice job of moving things along at a quick pace.  His use of close-frame shots and 1:78 aspect ratio give the film a REALLY claustrophobic feel, even though the whole thing is set outdoors.  The title is generic and terrible and tells you absolutely nothing about the film, and the ad campaign heavily implied that an alien life form was stalking the kids (spoiler alert: it isn't, and aliens are never once mentioned in the film).  This movie was obviously an inspiration for Predator, as the killer wears a ghillie suit that allows it to blend into the forest and the kids make use of carved stakes and a log trap in the final confrontation.