Backwoods

It's a shame that this lovely site doesn't feature a poster image of this 'Geek', a.k.a Backwoods. The VHS copy I rented showed a mad-raving freak, waving around a butcher's hatchet. It attracts horror lovers and, in all honesty, I have to admit that the cover motivated me to rent it without knowing anything about it. Big mistake, of course! Backwoods stands as one of the lousiest pieces of trash I ever beheld…and that does mean something! This film is a bloodless 80's slasher and that's about the worst idea possible. The makers clearly intended to bring tension and dept instead of blood and gore but they failed miserably. After an hour of viewing, you still haven't seen any of the cast-members dying (unless you think decapitated chickens are gruesome). What other reasons do you have for seeing a slasher besides teen-butchering??? The heart-breaking story about a lone Kentucky farmer and his deranged son? The thrilling adventures of a young couple camping? The only aspect worth mentioning is the eerie opening/end credits song. The slowly sung and chilling lyrics give you the wrong impression that you're about to watch a good film. Check out 'Deliverance', 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Just before Dawn', 'The Hills have Eyes' or even Rick Roessler's 'Slaughterhouse' instead! Anything but this turkey!

A low budget gem with surprisingly good actors and a plot that leaves you wondering who the real bad guy is. It's a shame that Dick Kreusser hasn't had many roles because his acting was the star of the show.

Scares 3/10 Tension 7/10 Gore 4/10 Nudity 10/10 Entertainment 10/10

Plot 5/10 Characters 5/10 Pacing 4/10 Music 3/10 Cinematography 5/10

Final score 5.8/10

If you like b-movies from the 80s then you might enjoy this. Two campers are terrorized by a geek, an insane man that bites the heads off chickens. This movie (Backwoods) is also known as 'Geek' in the U.K. Its a straight to video film with a cast of unknowns, but they play their roles well. I liked the overall creepy atmosphere of the film and the last 30 minutes were very entertaining. One thing that bugged me about this movie was not knowing what really happened to Beth,the little girl. Karen is shown sporting a shotgun and shoots toward William when he is dragging her beaten boyfriend away with Beth in toe and Karen blindly fires at the trio but we never see beth again but i assume Karen shot her by mistake. Other then this tiny plot hole i liked this movie. 6/10

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

Backwoods (1987)

** (out of 4)

By-the-numbers slasher has a couple from the city deciding to go to Kentucky for some camping. They're warned not to go down one path but of course they do and before long they meet an elder man. What the couple doesn't know is that the old man has a retarded and deranged son.

BACKWOODS is a film that I'm guessing went straight-to-video back in the day. There's no question that it didn't have too much money on its budget and if you're expecting a classy production then forget it. With that said, if you're a fan of slasher movies and need to see them all then I must admit that this here is much better than several of the slashers out there that had a bigger budget and better cast.

As it stands this here is a pretty routine movie. The two idiots don't listen to the warnings and before long they're dealing with a maniac redneck. The VHS cover bragged about this being as frightening as DELIVERANCE but of course that's certainly not true. This film wants to be like that masterpiece but also appeal to horror fans but the lack of any real gore and the lack of killings will keep it pretty much forgotten to most people.

The performances are pretty much what you'd expect but I did enjoy Dean Crow's direction. I thought he did a good job with the atmosphere and the setting was very good as well. BACKWOODS isn't a masterpiece, a good film or even a very memorable one but it's mildly entertaining for what it is.