The Final Terror (1983)
What's It About?
A group of... teenage forest ranger apprentices or something and a group of girls go out into a remote wilderness area to clear some brush and do some hiking. But a mysterious stranger kills the two adults and the kids are left to fend for themselves as they're hunted through the woods by a clever and sadistic killer.
Is It Any Good?
I've got a few sub-genres of horror that hold a spot in my heart. The little town being invaded by a malevolent force, the people trapped inside of a location being besieged by evil, the people dealing with significant personal drama while a killer pig hangs out on the fringes. But one of my very favorite concepts is the back-roads brutality film.
Back-roads brutality are often just ostensible slasher films but something about the idea of our protagonists not just being stalked by a murderer but also far away from civilization is an appealing hook to me. And no, summer camp slashers don't count. Think Rituals, Deliverance, The Zero Boys, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, Mother's Day, Southern Comfort, or even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Final Terror is a shining example of this sort of movie but it still has many of the trappings of a slasher film including a killer with an iconic outfit (a ghillie suit) and an iconic weapons (a sort of bladed gauntlet attached to one hand.) The poster and the trailer make it out like the kids have awoken some supernatural force but it's a run-of-the-mill serial killer story.
The one major thing I've got to harp on is that the third act twist is more or less given on early in the film. The characters pass an insane asylum on their way to the woods, a story gets told and a character reacts to it far too angrilly to be a coincidence. There's an attempt to make that moment seem like a red herring but it doesn't work, those even halfway paying attention should pick out who the killer is pretty quickly.
The kids are all pretty great and naturalistic actors, there's even a young post-Blade Runner Daryl Hannah among the group. The highlight of the movie, however, is Joe Pantoliano as Eggar. Eggar is sort of a harbinger and the red herring killer but the kids seem like assholes and Eggar seems like a pretty decent guy who gets overly defensive when people pick on him. Pantoliano is completely unrecognizable in the role, sporting a southern accent and some nasty looking teeth.
Unfortunately the end of the movie is fairly abrupt and relies on the killer, who for the entire movie has been one step ahead of the kids, to not bother them for what has to amount to most of a day and fall for an overly elaborate trap. The storyline is wrapped up well enough but there's just not much of a denouement. Fortunately this doesn't spoil the whole movie but it does take away from its appeal.
Lastly I just want to mention how odd it is that this movie was directed by Andrew Davis, the director of Under Siege, The Fugitive, Chain Reaction, and Collateral Damage. How you go from directing this to making dad movies for the rest of your career I'll never know.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
Buy it.