Backwoods

A couple go camping in the woods. When they're advised not to go in a certain direction, obviously, they venture there. When they save a little girl's life, the girl's hillbilly father invites them to dine with him and stay in their tent on his land. The next morning they meet his son- who just happens to be feral and likes to do things like biting the heads off chickens (hence the title of the movie).

Geek! Is also known as Backwoods in some territories.

The actual character of the geek (or William as he's known to his father) is very scary and very unsettling. There are shades of The Hills Have Eyes with Geek! As William's father confides that he once tried to kill his son as he knew he was possibly psychopathic.

This is a slow burn of a film but livens up when Billy Boy enters the fray (with drool dribbling from his chin).

Not bad. And in a subgenre that is overpopulated, I've seen much worse.

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

Karen (Christine Noonan), the female protagonist from backwoods slasher Geek, has got to be one of the most irritating horror movie heroines I've ever seen, totally deserving of the suffering she endures: she completely ignores a helpful park ranger's advice by choosing to camp in an area shunned by locals (they're not going there for a reason, you silly bint!); she refuses to listen to reason from her boyfriend Jamie (Brad Armacost), forcing him to accept an invitation to dinner from redneck Eben (Dick Kreusser), despite the fact that, moments earlier, he had held a loaded shotgun to Jamie's head; she skinny dips alone at a remote lake, without questioning the wisdom of such an act; and she not only insists that Jamie goes 'coon hunting with Eben, leaving herself at the mercy of Eben's drooling retard of a son William, but she decides that then would be a good time to strip off, giving William an eyeful of her nekkid bod.

William, whose hobby is biting the heads off small critters (especially chickens), rather unsurprisingly wigs out at the sight of Karen's tatas, and tries to attack her, at which point the film offers up some reasonable thrills followed by a neat finale in which Karen sets up a nasty trap involving fish-hooks and a bag full of rocks. Unfortunately, this comes very late in the day, after lots of dull wandering around the woods, and a drawn out scene in Eben's cabin in which Jamie and his hillbilly host get drunk on moonshine. If it wasn't for Karen's occasional nudity to alleviate the boredom, getting to the (unbelievably silly) end of Geek would be tougher than a three day hike through the backwoods of Kentucky.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

Horror movies aren't really my thing, but the lure of the Hollows pulled me in. Dean Crow directed a low budget winner which principally includes an old farm house, a pup tent and a lake. Poor William (Jack O'hara) the son of the stoical and psychologically nebulous Hillbilly Eben (Dick Kreusser), is quite a hyper guy who has a bad habit of killing little animals for fun and a quick snack, however, deep down he is quite a romantic. O'hara, with his big blue eyes and spastic movements plays the part of the Geek to perfection. I think it's fair to say that if he lived in Hollywood he would have been a utilized character actor and could have had a nice career.

Christine Noonan who plays Beth is the other standout. She is kind of a poor boys Adrienne Barbeau. Noonan does a fine job of acting and Director Crow's team does a great job of accentuating her two strongest points. There are also some interesting camera angles utilizing light and shadows which add to the tense mood of the film. All in all, a solid "B" movie worth a watch, IMHO.

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.