The Worst Film Ever

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The plot = A young couple travel throughout the country on they're bikes in search of a camping adventure, After they venture into the part of the woods that people in the town are scared off they come across an odd family with an even odder son.This is yet another in a long line of camping slashers that came out during the 1980's. Despite the theme of campers getting mixed up with an odd local family, it's actually somewhat different than what we usually get from this particular sub-genre. In fact it takes over an hour for anything to actually happen, during that time this movie just attempts to build the tension and flesh out the characters.But to be honest none of this worked in my opinion as this movie was just way to boring, and the cast were just not interesting for me to care about. Even the so-called pay off didn't work By the time things start rolling it's already an hour in and I've almost lost entirely all interest. The attempt to build character development was a worthy, but failed, effort for a flick in this genre.All in all "Backwoods" is just way too slow paced to be considered interesting, cause by the time anything happens you would have likely lost interest.

Could've been better, but this off-the-beaten trek through the Kentucky wilderness wasn't all that bad. The odd thing about this ultra-cheap, b-grade fare was how it actually went about setting up the whole situation, as the horrific nature and possibilities waiting to break out don't really come to play until the hour mark when it turns in to a fairly routine backwoods survival story. But before that it's slow winding with its focus on a city couple (a doctor and his girlfriend) when they save a young girl from chocking, as her father (a perfect performance by Jack Kreusser) watched on. In gratitude the father invites them back for supper and to spend the night on his property, but unknowingly to them he keeps in his back-shed his geek son (an illustratively deranged Jack O'Hara) that likes to bite heads off chickens. Don't us all. Strangely this where an interesting rapport is created as the drama at hand follows the welcoming hospitality and communication between the father (who likes coon hunting and moonshine) and the young doctor. Their first encounter with the wacko son builds up a bit of tension and would show the fascination that draws him to the young lady (the very capable Christine Noonan). This progression of differing values comes to a loggerhead and the material does a good job in developing the characters. It might not be multi-facet and in depth, but does more than just scrape the surface. I hate to say it, though I was more captivated by the how the opening gradually folded out that when it came to breaking out the chaos, it felt a little lacking. However the tactical set-up of the climax is a nasty surprise, and the shock ending is a bit of a doozer.Dean Crow directs with a resourceful touch for such a budget and enthusiasm, where he skips the blood and gore (which can be disappointing) in the favour for building up suspense. Yep that's true… suspense. He slowly milks it out. Sure it doesn't always come off, but I couldn't help but give credit for trying something a little different with the material. The backdrop is beautifully projected, even though it doesn't have any sort of impact, but when it came to the night sequences with the nightlife sounds it pitched up some atmospheric patches.

I have to admit that this fascinatingly awful movie (the version we screened was the US release, BACKWOODS) was actually quite watchable, the most amusing aspect being that one of the peanut gallery here remarked that it was better than DELIVERANCE because it had four scenes female nudity instead of Ned Beatty getting punked. "What EVER, dude" was all I could manage as a reply.THE PLOT: An annoying young urbanite cutesy yuppie liberal couple sets off for a biking/hiking tour of the Kentucky mountains (with their doctor's bag & some sort of game about telling people they are brother/sister, which is kind of kinky to say the least) and promptly wind up enjoying supper with a backwoods cracker who makes his own moonshine, carries a breech loader shotgun everywhere and thinks he's Tom Waits, growling out the movie's theme "song" with the same kind of gusto. Seems ole' Eben has had a spate of bad luck at his stereotypical cracker/hick/hillbilly chicken farm, losing his wife to tragedy, having his son suffer a developmentally disabling accident and his daughter breaking her neck, oops. The yuppies are too polite to tell the cracker to go punt off and hang around long enough for William the Geek to decide he likes the purdy lady's hair more than biting the heads off the mechanical chickens credited in the film's closing reel of talent names (there's a resume I'd like to read -- "Responsible for the mechanical chicken effects on Dean Crow's BACKWOODS, 1987").William predictably runs amok, Eben conveniently dies, the annoying doctor boyfriend inexplicably disappears, there is a showdown of survival skills that our pretty heroine wins by default for just having seen a couple episodes of "MacGuyver" or "The Fishin' Musician", perhaps both, and the inconclusive twist ending (now how does the guy end up in the Geek Shack, again??) is just infuriating enough to make you forget that eighty nine minutes of pretty much nothing have just idled by, but gosh darnit it wasn't boring once you get down to brass tacks. There is indeed abundant female nudity (though star Ms. Noonan's film career begins and ends with this epic tale, too bad because she had some spunk to her & a non-traditional feminine beauty that is hard to deny when she's all naked like that), it's always fun + politically acceptable to laugh at stupid white redneck trash haha, and ole' Eben can spin a mighty interesting story when he's tossing back a mason jar of real Mountain Dew. All he needs is some guy with an accordion and he could go on tour with a Tom Waits revival band.I guess that's the movie's big insight: The term "Mountain Dew" was originally hillbilly slang for moonshine before becoming the name for a disgusting soft drink I'll never be able to ingest again without thinking of this movie. Beyond that, a great line about how "Women in these parts warm the bed", and some hints as to how to make a death trap out of fishing hooks (plus bring some nice take-out when staying at a hillbilly chicken farm overnight) the movie doesn't seem to have had a real artistic need to have been made, raising the interesting question of what the point of it is :-) . We don't learn anything about the people involved and since William the Geek is a slavering sub-human rather than an evil villain ala the guys in DELIVERANCE the film comes down to a behavior study -- Here is how yuppies behave when on vacation, here is how hillbillies behave when the have company over for dinner, and here is how geeks behave when purdy ladies start getting undressed on the front lawn & going for ill-advised but fun to watch naked swims. That the movie is well made and doesn't try to accomplish more than it's budget allowed is more impressive than anything depicted on screen; Here is a stupid exploitation film that knows it's place, nice and safely tucked away down in the gutter for anybody who wants a peek, the rest of us can just go about our lives without missing anything too novel. And that's what a Geek Show is once you think about it. How fitting!4/10

Dean Crow's "Backwoods" is nothing special.The film itself is quite entertaining as it reminds me a little bit "Luther the Geek".Jack O'Hara,who plays William,is truly amazing as a drooling and bearded weirdo.He kills chickens by biting their heads off and goes mad on numerous occasions.The film offers plenty of female nudity and a little bit of gore.The action is rather slow-moving,but the climax is pretty suspenseful and memorable.So if you're a fan of low-budget horror give this one a look-just don't expect something scary or original.My rating:6 out of 10.Here are my other recommendations:"Just Before Dawn","Hunter's Blood","Blood Tracks","Blood Salvage" and "The Hills Have Eyes".