Don't Go in the Woods (1981 film)

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Don't Go in the Woods... Alone!
Theatrical poster
Directed by	James Bryan
Screenplay by	Garth Eliassen
Story by	Garth Eliassen
Produced by	James Bryan Suzette Gomez Roberto Gomez
Starring	Jack McClelland Mary Gail Artz James P. Hayden Angie Brown
Cinematography	Hank Zinman
Music by	H. Kingsley Thurber
Production company	JBF
Distributed by	Seymour Borde & Associates
Release date	November 20, 1981 (1981-11-20)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$150,000[1]

Don't Go in the Woods (also known as Don't Go in the Woods... Alone!) is a 1981 American slasher film directed by James Bryan and written by Garth Eliassen. The film follows four campers confronted by a murderous woodsman slaying hikers on a wooded mountainside. It is one of the infamous "video nasties" banned in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.^[2]

Plot

A frightened woman is running down a small stream when an unseen assailant murders her. Soon after, a bird watcher is also murdered. Meanwhile, four friends (Peter, Joanne, Ingrid, and Craig) are trekking through the nearby wilderness. Unbeknownst to them, another tourist gets thrown over a waterfall—landing near some oblivious frolickers and his mother is wounded and dragged away. The four backpackers set up camp for the night. Elsewhere, a pair of honeymooners named Dick and Cherry get attacked. Dick is murdered when he exits the van to investigate a noise. Cherry, now paranoid, arms herself with a small bust. The killer throws Dick's body against one of the windows and starts to rock the van back and forth, tumbling it down a small hill where it catches on fire with Cherry still inside. The next day, the two couples continue their hike; meanwhile, the killer stabs an artist painting a scenic view to death and kidnaps her young daughter.

Two more campers get butchered; the killer slits one's throat and hangs the other's sleeping bag from a tree before killing her with a spear. Alone, Peter witnesses a fisherman murdered with a bear trap to the head. The killer turns out to be a spear-wielding wild man sporting furs and rags. Peter rushes off to warn his friends, but the maniac gets to them first, slicing Craig's arm off. Craig screams, attracting Ingrid to come running to investigate, and Joanne flees into the woods by herself. Ingrid finds the campsite aftermath of Craig and Joanne and runs away. Peter later finds Ingrid at another person's wrecked camp before the two come across the wild man's cabin and go inside. They find several sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling and junk littered across the floor. Peter accidentally triggers a trap that reveals Craig's body wrapped in a plastic sheet. Peter and Ingrid flee the cabin. A hiker finds a stick covered in tiny metal objects and takes it; Peter and Ingrid hear the stick jingling, and Peter wounds him, mistaking him for the wild man. The killer tosses a sharpened stick into the hiker, killing him. Then he wounds Ingrid with two of the spears. Before he can finish her off, Peter grabs her hand, and they escape. They walk several miles before finding a chairlift and seeing a small town, which they enter.

Irrational due to guilt over leaving Joanne behind, Peter escapes from the hospital he and Ingrid are brought to and returns to the woods. Joanne finds a campsite containing a dead body and flees in terror. She finds the wild man's cabin. Joanne encounters the wild man and attempts to escape through an open window but gets hacked to death with a machete. The police form a posse that includes Ingrid to hunt down the maniac and find Peter and Joanne. The sheriff finds the cabin, where he uncovers Joanne's body, leaving Peter even more distraught.

The wild man claims another victim—a man in a wheelchair who is decapitated by nightfall. Ingrid steals a machete and looks for Peter. She finds him by morning, along with the savage whom they stab to death in a frenzy, only stopping when the search party arrives. As everyone leaves the forest, the baby taken from the artist is shown alone in the wilderness, playing with a hatchet.

Cast

• Jack McClelland as Peter
• Mary Gail Artz as Ingrid
• James P. Hayden as Craig
• Angie Brown as Joanne
• Ken Carter as Sheriff
• David Barth as Deputy Benson
• Larry Roupe as Store Owner
• Amy Martell as Artist's Child
• Tom Drury as Maniac
• Laura Trefts as Doctor Maggie

Victims

• Alma Ramos as Running Girl
• Carolyn Braza as Cherry
• Frank Clitus Muller as Dick
• Mc Cormick Dalten as Bird Watcher
• Cecelia Fannon as Lady Artist
• Dale Angell as Tourist at Falls
• Ruth Grose as Tourist's Mother
• Hank Zinman as Fisherman
• Leon Brown Jr. as Camper in sleeping bag
• Linda Brown as Camper in sleeping bag
• Gerry Klein as Man in wheelchair
• Tom Ruff as Man in tree

Production

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After the release of his earlier film Boogie Vision, director James Bryan decided on making a horror film set in the Rocky Mountains as his next project. The film was supposedly based on local rumors about a number of hitchhikers who had reportedly fallen victim to a suspected serial killer.^{[citation needed]}

The film was shot on a budget of $150,000^[1] in the summer of 1980, during the director's seven-year sojourn.^[3] It was shot in outdoor locations, partly in order to save money on the film's lighting.^[4] Parts of the film were shot in Brighton, Utah.^[5]

Release

Don't Go in the Woods was released regionally in the United States, opening in six theaters^[1] in the Salt Lake City area on November 20, 1981,^[6] and subsequently screening in Provo on November 27.^[1]

In the 1980s, the film was deemed a

Linda Gross, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, called the film "a terrible turkey" and criticized the poor direction, screenplay and acting.^[9]

Paul Mavis, writing for