Hemlock, la montagne maudite

Well, Vern's back. So are Boon Collins and screenwriter Lindsey Bourne. Five or six years after the first movie three curvaceous sirens, led by Ingrid (the butt-kicking Donna Jason), come up to the mountains for a vacation. Unfortunately for them, Vern saw the first movie again and remembered that he still doesn't have a wife. This, of course, is the perfect opportunity for him, as at least one of the three girls is bound to fit him to a tee. Following in almost a cookie cutout plot of the original 'Abducted', this movie sees Collins admitting defeat and just throwing crap up on the screen. Any hint of intelligence the original 'Abducted' had is thrown out for T&A, and the only reason I continued watching it was for the campy, she-Rambo action sequences. One bullet-dodging scene in particular I think the Wachowskis copied in 'The Matrix'. A little fun, but a whole lot more bad. Rating: 18/40

Sharon Baker, Ingrid Weinhard and Maria Marcolini are three friends who go camping in Harmony Lake National Park. It's the off season. Park attendant Jack Webster leads the girls to the lake. Mountain man Vern is back looking for a wife. He kidnaps the girls and kills Jack. Meanwhile, Vern's father Joe Evans (Dan Haggerty) is guiding rich arrogant hunter Brad Allen (Jan-Michael Vincent).

This is pretty straight forward exploitation fare. It's not that bad as far as this genre goes. The girls are surprisingly good actors. I just never get the sense that these girls would go hardcore camping. Turning into Rambo is very campy. The whole thing plays out in an unlikely fashion. Ingrid is doing cartwheels while avoiding gunfire and then spears Vern in a caveman move. At least, she seems athletic enough but the choreography is poor. The side of the story with Haggerty and Vincent seems disconnected from the rest of the movie. Unless the audience knows that Joe Evans is Vern's father, they may as well be two random guys. It does allow one funny scene where Sharon goes topless trying to wave down their helicopter where Ingrid has a funny line.

People can come back to life. You should always go camping in designer outfits. The best way for a woman to get a helicopter pilot's attention is to take off your blouse and wave it, while running bare breasted through the forest. Transforming from meek submissive captive to spear throwing "Ramboette" in the blink of an eye is no problem. You can saw the head off an Elk without getting a drop of blood on yourself. Cave man Vern confirms that nut jobs want to skip foreplay entirely. Dan Haggerty and Jan Michael Vincent must have wanted to commit career suicide by being in this....... The film has few redeeming qualities, unless a Ram's head rolling down a mountainside counts for chuckles. The acting is bad, the story is stupid. Nice scenery though. - MERK