A family the
Bruno's are travelling to go on a camping
trip in the woods but they hear strange
sounds there and then they stop at a
local store but it appears abandoned and
then their car is stuck in a ditch and
they can't get it out.
So the driver Frank (Salvatore Paul
Piro) tries to look for a place to get
help. He spots a run down house in the
middle of nowhere and spots a strange old
lady Mrs. Leeds (Irma St. Paule)
and her retarded daughter Judy (Christie
Sanford) as he asks for a telephone to
get a tow truck but he spots a satanic
ritual in their back yard and then he
ends up being slaughtered by Judy.
After waiting for a long time Frank's
wife Donna (Felissa Rose) tries to look
for him and then goes to the house. Mrs.
Leeds welcomes Donna into her house and
then offers her a drink of ice water only
to realise that she was poisoned.
Then she is tortured and tied to a tree
in the woods and then is tormented by
Mrs. Leeds mentally challanged son Boy (Edwin
Neal). Next, is carried back to the house
and tied up.
The Bruno's discover that the area is
haunted by the Jersey Devil as people are
even being slaughtered by a demonic force
in the air.
Great shots of the woods before
autumn came as the trees were bare
without leaves as well as many good
camera takes ooking up on the woods and
blue sky circling around.
There's many good shots on Donna Bruno looking happy
on the shotgun seat of the car driving as
well as a good angle shot on her usband Frank driving the car yawning
and ready to fall asleep. In the back
seat there's a nice shot on Paula looking happy and the shot
on the baby.
Then in the very back of the car a great
shot on Sean concentrating
on playing with a rubix cube. All of this
looked silent, still and peaceful.
A good shot on Frank ready to fall asleep on the wheel with Donna smacking him and getting aggressive
towards him which looked good as well as
their argumentive situations.
A great moment with Paula acting a little paranoid after hearing a
sound and then Frank being distracted by
it along with a good shot on the car's
wheel blowing out.
There's a good distance shot on Frank walking up to a broken down house as well
as a nice shot on him knocking on the
door with the door opening and then Mrs. Leeds in a wheelchair with Judy pushing her and their
greeting looked way too pleasant along
with a nice get to the point attitude
towards him. All of this looked
impressive that something is about to
happen that's not good.
There's a great aggression with him
demanding for a phone and Mrs. Leeds telling him to wait for a sec and then I
loved the shot of the
satanic rituals performed when he looks at a window in the creepy house to
see the terror that is going on.
Then there's a good moment with him
trying to look for a way out and then a
good shot on Judy looking at
him with an evil grin and then a good
side shot with window behind them shining
on them and her whacking him in the head.
There's good shots on Mrs. Leeds looking amused while Judy is
whacking the hammer on his head with a good close up shot on Judy having sprinkles of blood hitting her
face..
A good shot on Donna walking in the misty wooded area and then
knocking on the door with Mrs. Leeds greeting her and then inviting her in
which seemed like a different setting
with Donna herself acting pleasant as
well as a good camera shot looking up on
the two of them talking which looked
quite artsy.
There's some good moment with Donna losing control as well as shots on some
strange areas of the house with creepy
stuff.
Also good blurry shots on Mrs. Leeds with her wicked expressions
and other surrounding like she's losing
conciousness.
Nice shots on Sean in
his car trying to call for his Mom with Paula trying to keep him quiet which looked
natural.
There's a great moment with Paula running in the woods and Judy running away giggling with the baby which
brought up some terrific energy as well
as good low camera shots on them running
through the misty dark woods.
A nice moment with Paula screaming and running to the house and
panting and panicking towards Mrs. Leeds about what has happened.
There's a nice brief discussion with Mrs. Leeds trying to talk to a lost
teen trying to get away acting
uncomfortable with her trying to convince
her to stay and help find her baby which
looked quite intense.
A good shot on Donna tied
to a tree screaming with a shot on a
whipping boy taunting her and then a nice
shot on Sean looking shocked by what he
spots.
A good moment with Sean looking away while trying to knock on the
house door with Judy seeing him and
trying to bring him in as well as a good
distance shot on Boy burying
some corpses and acting deformed while
doing this.
A great camera shot looking up on Mrs. Leeds taking to Sean about her family which looked believeably
twisted as well as a great close up shot
on her looking nasty and trying to force
a pill in his mouth with good angle shots
on her pushing it in and trying to make
him drink some water.
There's a good shot on Donna tied
up under a basement of the house with her
trying to talk to Boy and
tempting him with pills which looked
pretty good as well as a good shot on him
staring creepily at her.
A nice shot with Judy whacking Paula with a hammer
and a nice close up shot on her wide eyed
expressions and falling down as as well
as a great shot on her lying on the floor
with her big eyes acting lifeless.
A good shot looking down on Sean outside with the ground sucking him down.
There's lots of high and low shots on Donna running away in the woods screaming
giving it a good horror feel to it as
well as her trying to flag down a vehicle
limping.
A good shot on bit part actor a stoner getting high
with a great side shot quickly closing in
on him and shots on his face being being
cut with great quick attack shots while
this is happening.
There's a good camera shot looking down
on Donna waking up in a hospital
with a shot looking up on a
reporter asking her questions.
Oh yessss, a
tribute to the retro horror genre like Evil
Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hills Have Eyes but Evil
Dead definetely and not overly
gory either and no posessions. When you
first watch the film you think to
yourself "Why is everything so
quiet" but then the terror begins
big time.
Great effects in this film as well as a
good twisted plot to it and great to
watch before getting into the Halloween
spirit.
However, the story does get stale as
there's not alot of point to it. You
wonder to yourself how can anyone escape
from this madness?
The wooded area truly looked creepy with
a force running around it as well as the
demented satanic family doing their evil
deeds which looked intense. But
everything went around in circles all the
time. It seemed like that Dante
Tomaselli was running out of ideas
on what to do next when he wrote this
flick and did a better job by directing
and composing the music for it. Yet he
seemed to have a good budget for the film
with how he shot this for the opening
credits which looked like that it was
taken from a helicopter shooting the
woods and the car driving along which
almost looked like a similar opening to The
Shining.
Most of the other scene's were about a
woman who is getting tormented out in the
woods and then tied up in a basement of
the house and finding some ways on
escaping this madness. The rest were
being killed or sucked into a ground by
an evil force and other types of weird
scene's following this.
At first you wonder in the middle of this
film it's going to end and what the point
of all of it was. You just wanna keep
watching it still but again nothing too
special.
Bottom line is Evil Dead has done something similar to this so
there's nothing original about this film
and it gets very bland and the thing that
saved to being above average was the
great creepy scenery and Tomaselli's directing as well as a nice start off and
of course like mentioned above a movie
with a Halloween spirit type of feeling
to everything and the interesting effects
too. But that's about it.
The acting in this
film is incredible!!! We have many cult
classic horror film icons from the 70's
and 80's in this one.
However, this would mark Sleepaway
Camp veteran Felissa
Rose' (Donna Bruno) in her best performance which
says very little as the nagging wife
in which her intensity is
extremely effective when she tries to run
away from the crazy demonic family. But
yet her facial expressions still look the
same and when she tries to act normal
while speaking you can tell it's her
typical self and not getting into much
character at all. She does show a good shocked reactions when she spots something creepy. Nice
emotional crying on her behalf near the end of her performance. Also was nicely energised when she freaks out pointing out towards someone to an onscreen officer on who created the madness that she was claiming killed her family.
Next, we have Edwin
Neal (Boy) playing a retarded mute evil
boy as he performs believeably at that as
well as demented too. You can tell that he
remembered how he portrayed the
hitchhiker from Texas Chainsaw
Massacre and used a bit of it
for this film which really works too.
Next up, we have Ellen Sandweiss (Paula) from Evil Dead fame which is great to
see her back in action again and this
time she is terrorised in a different way
than being molested by a tree. She brings
a ton of energy to her role and knew how
to have a still calm attitude during the
beginning of the film. A great reaction with her running in the woods after spotting someone running away with her baby.
We also have a cameo by Ron Millkie (Officer Peters) if you also remember his cameo as an
officer in the very first Friday
the 13th film and he plays a
similar type officer in this one but he
adds alot more character with this film
and boy does he get a surprise killing.
This film will definetely help these
actors rise back to their fame in future
independent horror flicks like this one.
Let's go to the Tomaselli favourites:
Christie Sanford (Judy) reminded me of
similar type horror villains with her
personality and pulls it off greatly
showing some good comedic type evil
expressions as well as really knowing how
to act menacing with a hammer to
someone's head but there's a certain moment that needed improvement to make it look more brutal than it was expected.
Danny Lopes (Sean) knew his stuff as the
autistic son as you'd almost think he was
really like that with his emotionless
expressions and behaving very unnormal
with how he does things.
But the one who stole the film would be
no other than Irma St. Paule (Mrs. Leeds) with
her split personality as the wicked old hag as she makes her lines come
across wonderfully and being able to
change her voice from warm and soft to
cackling nasty without making it sound
phony. Even her presence will make you
think that she's not safe to be around. She had a great
menacing attitude while getting someone to swallow a pill.
Donna is stabbed
by a meat cleaver
An officers face is slashed by a demonic
force
A stoned out camper's throat is slashed
open by a demonic force and blood is
gushing out
Another officers head is bloodied after a
hammer hits him in the head.
The music was wonderfully
composed by Kenneth Lampl and Dante Tomaselli himself which is the
best music in a Tomaselli movie.
Its has lots of little chills and dark
edges to the film. There's some nice
mellow by spooky like keyboard plunking
when there is the first scene of the
creepy house. There's also many good wind
chiming sounds along with stormy wind
effects and groaning type music too.
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