The Final Terror

The Final Terror
Directed by Andrew Davis
Produced by Joe Roth
Written by
Starring
Music by Susan Justin
Cinematography Andrew Davis
Distributed by Comworld Pictures
Release dates
  • November 4, 1983 (1983-11-04)[1][2]
Running time
 82 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Final Terror (also known as Carnivore, and internationally Campsite Massacre) is a 1983 American horror-thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and co-written by Ronald Shusett, and starring Rachel Ward, Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed, and Joe Pantoliano. The film originally went through many working titles as The Creeper, Three Blind Mice, and The Forest Primeval, but during production it was filmed under the title Bump in the Night before ultimately choosing the title as The Final Terror. The plot follows a group of forest rangers camping in the Northern California wilderness who find themselves fighting for their lives against a backwoods feral killer hunting them as prey. It blends elements of survival thrillers and slasher films.

The film was shot on location in 1981 in the Redwood forests, and was not released for two years due to the production searching for a distributor. It was eventually released in 1983 to capitalize on the rising fame of its young stars (namely Ward, Hannah, and Zmed), and co-stars Pantoliano in his early roles. In recent years, the film has developed a small cult following.[3]

Plot

A young couple named Jim and Lori loses control of their motorbike while riding in a forest. With Jim hurt, Lori find no help and return, only to find Jim dead hanging from a tree before she is killed by a trap full of sharp objects. Weeks later, a group of campers consisted of Dennis, Margaret, Wendy, Marco, Nathaniel, Boone, Eggar, Vanessa, Mike, and Melanie, arrive at the forest. The group makes a clearing and spend the night around a bonfire telling a story; a young woman was raped and became insane enough to flee into the forest.

The next morning, the group discover the next morning that Marco and Eggar missing. While the others search for them, Mike takes a swim with Melanie and later have sex, during which Mike is stabbed to death by an camouflaged killer and kidnaps Melanie. Nathaniel and Dennis find an abandoned cabin containing an old grave. Dennis enters the cabin and Nathaniel hears him scream, only for it to be a prank by Dennis trying to scare him. While searching the cabin for food and items, they find a severed wolf's head in a cabinet and are shaken before returning to the camp.

That night, the killer appears near Margaret in her sleep and she hysterically tells the others what she saw. The campers also find Marco, who has returned to the camp. After Vanessa gets angry at the men for scaring the girls, she walks off alone to the outhouse; she screams when Mike's severed head falls onto her, and the group comes to her aid. The group spends one more night at the camp, and they find no successful search for Melanie who they assumed was still with Mike. In the morning, they go to the cabin to find the killer, unbeknownst is down in the basement with a captured Melanie, and they flee with the rafts after finding a human hand jar. While rafting along the river, the body of Melanie is tossed onto the boat by the killer and causes panic among the group. Burying Melanie near the river, the group continues on to the end of the river and find their empty, broken-down bus. They spend the night there, but the killer attacks and gets inside the bus before the group escapes out the back door. Wendy gets separated and is slashed by the creature, where the group comes to her and gives her first aid.

The group gathers supplies and camouflage themselves. Dennis climbs one of the highest trees, where he sets a spiked log trap. Marco begins calling out for Eggar, who appears and begins to strangle Marco. The group attacks Eggar, suspecting him as the killer. While Dennis is watching the rest of the group fight, the killer murders him from behind and rises up to scream; it is revealed that Eggar's missing mother is the killer. As she walks down to the group, she accidentally sets off the trap and is brutally impaled to her death. The film ends with the group watching in horror, as Eggar's mother hangs dead in the trap.

Cast

Production

Filming for The Final Terror was shot in Redwood National and State Parks[4] and Crescent City, California[5] in 1981. During production, the cast and crew stayed in California and would cross the border before filming all day in Oregon state whilst also traveling along the Whitewater River. The film was an early outing for future Morgan Creek and Revolution Studios founder Joe Roth. This was director Andrew Davis' second film as director following the 1978 contemporary jazz musical Stony Island. Davis as cinematographer, under the pseudonym Andreas Davidescu to avoid problems with the union at the time.[5]

After production for the film was completed, the film was shelved for a few years until 1983 as the production searched for a distributor. Originally, the film had only three death scenes. In an attempt to widen the film's appeal, an prologue depicting the murder of a couple was shot without Davis' permission. As such, Roth had to pay a fee, some of it coming from Davis' small wedding at the time.[5] The film, during production, was originally titled Bump in the Night.[5]

When filming in the forests, sometimes the forest would get chillier and rain, causing the crew to get cold.[6] During this, Davis and Roth forgot their lines due to the cold weather.[6] During the shooting in the Whitewater River, the cast would sometimes cuddle together in-between shots to keep themselves warm before returning back to their motel during shooting.[4] The crew even stayed nights in the bus while the weather was cold and damp outside.[5]

During shooting, there was a night that the locals gave them marijuana brownies and some of the cast was sent to the hospital. Accordingly to actor Lewis Smith, it was assumed the locals didn't like the cast and crew staying in the area.[7] Upon driving in one of their cars, the crew hit a Redwood tree and Smith cited their excuse was "someone putted the tree out on the street".[7]

According to Adrian Zmed, Davis would do constant shooting, and the scene with Zmed's character howling was done in estimated 15-20 takes. After the scene was completed, the cast was laughing from all of the takes.[4] Zmed also mentions that his difficult scene was when Eggar was strangling his character Marco, and the time he didn't know how to act in physical pain, so he asked stunt-woman Jeannie Epper to squeeze the rope harder, which helped.[4] The cast actually did their own stunts for the most record, especially Davis.[4] In the log-trap creation scene where Dennis Zorich was climbing up the tree, they used real tree-climbers helping them and used logging techniques.[5]

Actor Joe Pantoliano was afraid of going into the woods during shooting and would get freaked out.[5]

After production was completed, the cast would go to the motel and hang out with each other's rooms, by playing cards or watching television.[4]

Release

The film came into home video on VHS in the mid 1980's and later had a DVD release in the 2000's. In July 2014, Shout! Factory subsidiary Scream Factory released the film in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, which contains contains the R-rated version. Accordingly, the film had lost all of the original negative and inner-positive are all lost and Scream Factory went through six film prints lent by film collectors to deliver the best looking reels for the combo pack.

Reception

Currently on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 29% approval rating with an average rating of 3.9/10 based on 7 reviews. AllMovie gave a 2.5 rating, citing the film as "mediocre" and recommending "worth watching more for its cast than for its cliched story".[8]

Joe Yandrick of Diabolique Magazine gave the film 3/5 stars. While he praised the direction, score, and acting (particularly Pantoliano and Friedrich), he criticized the pacing and the lack of originality within the story. He mentions the ending's reveal as "unpredictable", but also felt "cheapened" the whole film. Overall, he concluded that the film was "a fun, but flawed attempt to capitalize on the growing slasher market." [3]

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑
  3. 1 2 Joe Yanick (August 10, 2016). "The Final Terror (US Blu-Ray review)". Diabolique Magazine.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Adrian Zmed (2014) Interview (Blu-Ray). Scream Factory.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Andrew Davis. Audio Commentary (Blu-Ray). Scream Factory.
  6. 1 2 Adrian Zmed (2014), Lewis Smith. Interview (Blu-Ray). Scream Factory.
  7. 1 2 Lewis Smith (2014). Interview (Blu-Ray). Scream Factory.
  8. ↑ "The Final Teror (1981)". AllMovie. Retrieved 2016-07-30.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.