First off, let me say I wasted Halloween movie night by watching this garbage. Second, let me inform you that the current DVD available by Shriek Show is not uncut, so you gore hounds will be very upset. Third, that one scene is the highlight of the film and since it's been cut, well, you see where I'm going.
I know a lot of horror fans dig this movie. It is atmospheric, shot in the woods with some very nice scenery, waterfalls and such. But after the opening kill, which has a very brutal shot of a machete being jammed through a hunter's crotch, you get no real brutal kills after that. And, with a slasher movie, you sort of want that. At least, I do. The director and co. do nothing new with the killer in the woods idea, several of this type of movie were all made right around the same time in the very early eighties. The only thing this has going for it is that you don't hate the actors as much as you might in other films. They are sort of likable. The kids have a reason for being there: one of them owns a deed to some property on the mountain. But what is not explained is why his family has property there. There is no cabin or house, so why buy property in East Jesus, especially if you aren't a hunter or whatnot? Well, I'm sure some people do buy land for camping purposes, but that just seems unusual. Anyway, two squealing backwoods inbreds show up and start stalking the campers and picking them off one by one. And, as I said before, you get pretty much nothing in the way of decent deaths after the machete kill in the beginning. The ending has a sort of off the wall kill by Connie, but even that isn't enough to save this from being almost equal with the completely forgettable film, The Forest, which is mind-numbing.
If Shriek Show had been able to get a real uncut print, then this review might have been a little more forgiving, but this is the day and age of uncut/unrated DVD releases of old obscure films for cine-hounds like me. When you slight us, you get the crud review. Sadly, the presence of the great fatherly George Kennedy is the only highlight of this movie to set it apart from the other garden variety trash that was churned out back in the day.