Memorial Valley Massacre

I saw this 80s slasher on British video as 'Valley of Death' and it's one of those flicks where everyone is so naff and stupid the reason to keep watching is to see how many of them die horribly. Unfortunately the violence is a bit too restrained, which is a problem because the stupidity rating of the characters is high - all the cliches are here, the obnoxious fat kid, a pair of poodle-haired teenage hoodlums and a gang of acting school rejects trying to be tough bikers. The girls are old-school, i.e. they don't tool up and try to be Sigourney Weaver as soon as there's a threat. The main problem is with the maniac who's stalking them - he's obviously like the cannibal killers in 'The Hills Have Eyes', but instead it looks more like Cindi Lauper designed him. Not very threatening! But if you need a dumb campsite murder flick to end the night with, it's bearable and you can enjoy the formula even if it could do with some nastier payoffs.

Wow - this movie fails on so many levels and yet for fans of real cinema "cheese" it is a hoot. See, a caveman has been living i the woods for twenty years and no one has ever seen him, but damnit, they open a new campground right near his hunting ground. And this Caveboy hates noise and you how noisy humans were in the late 1980's. The gore is laughable, the acting isn't even community theatre bad, the score is so bizarre and all over the place that I would buy it if I ever came across it - that's how unique and strange it is. Almost every scene starts with the "actors" literally waiting for the Action cue from the director and then they start the scene - so the editing is awful too. Lots of bad speeches - some of the script is Ed Wood level bad. My pals and I laughed at this one a lot. A real cheesfest!

Forgettable, by-the-numbers 80's slasher in the woods, which is saved from total mediocrity by an unusually high body count and a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek humor during the first hour. The beautiful forest region of Memorial Valley is being turned into a fancy camping site by a rich business man. Various campers begin to arrive, even though the site is far from ready yet, and so does a primitive caveman killer. At first, it simply looks like the scarcely dressed Tarzan Junior is butchering campers because they're messing with the ecological balance in Memorial Valley, but there's also a personal vendetta. He has been living in the deep forests for almost twenty years, and his presumable father – who just happens to be in charge of the campsite – never managed to track him down. The murders in this low-budget slasher are pretty imaginative, albeit completely gore-free and rather tame. A couple of insufferable characters are massacred with ingenious booby-traps (pits with stakes, falling trunks, ...) but the cave boy himself is one of the most UN-menacing killers in the history of horror movies. His total lack of evil charisma is even funnier when a supposedly tough and macho biker runs away from him, screaming with fear like a little girl... Multiple other reviewers also pointed out already that it's quite remarkable that our Mowgli has the knowledge to blow up a caravan without ever having seen one before in his life! There are loads of amusing little stupidities in "Memorial Valley Massacre" and they effectively distract you from the total lack of tension, plausibility and gore. Robert C. Hughes' previous movie, the fascinating survival horror flick "Hunter's Blood", was a lot better and more tense but still this quickie is recommended to undemanding horror fans. The character of the retired military general (played by veteran William Smith) is truly cool.

Plot = Memorial Valley Campsite has just opened for business even though it's far from finished. A bunch of campers set up camp, unknowing of the terror that awaits them in the forest. You see, a Tarzan-like forest boy does not approve of the recent changes in Memorial Valley and has decided to start killing the campers.

Well I can say that I've definitely never seen a movie about a killer caveman before, cheesy for the first hour in other words just ain't that good only one person dies during that time, however once the movie gets going the last thirty minutes is pretty entertaining as should they be seeing as how fourteen people get killed in the final half hour of the movie.

This is one of the last backwoods slashers that we got from the 80s and I think it's pretty safe to say that this was one of the movies that killed the trend. The movie is obviously very low-budget with a bunch of incompetent actors and an even more incompetent special effects team. The gore effects are ridiculous. Memorial Valley Massacre is far from a flawless film but as I said before, the final 30 minutes kind of make the first hour feel worth while.

All in all it may not be a very good movie but it's quite enjoyable during the last thirty minutes which is why I've given a 5 instead of a 4.

From a horror standpoint, "Memorial Valley Massacre" is a worthless slasher that no serious horror fan should bother with. What saves it from being a total bomb is the tongue-in-cheek approach of the filmmakers, at least in the first half. For example, early on a man says "We've got a problem with the water" (the movie is set on a camp) and proceeds to pull a dead dog out of the well! Hilarious! Then Cameron Mitchell (who appears for about 2 minutes as an investor; did he actually get paid for this?) asks: "Screw the dog, is the water fit to drink?" (!!!). The film also includes the following exchange: "Are you the head ranger here?" - "Well, I'm the only ranger here, so I guess you can say I'm the head one". Oh, and the primitive kid who has lived all his life away from civilization, apparently knows how to create a gas explosion. (*1/2)