“I can’t see a thing!”

Drake’s rating: Reason #247 for why you should never go camping in an ‘80s movie

Drake’s review: The name “Samuel Z. Arkoff” should be a familiar one to any veteran of the cult movie scene. As co-founder of American International Pictures, Arkoff was instrumental in producing numerous flicks about beach parties, monsters, and bikers, keeping the drive-ins well stocked with cinematic entertainment. But in the late ‘70s he left AIP after it was sold to Filmways and started Arkoff International Pictures which, sadly, did not have nearly the lengthy and successful run that American International had. In fact, they had a stumble right out of the gate.

Looking at the success of slasher flicks such as Friday the 13th, Arkoff was intent on cashing in on the trend and assembled some formidable talent to go about it. Working from a script co-written by Ronald Shusset, who had co-created Alien with Dan O’Bannon, director Andrew Davis (of The Fugitive fame) turned in an effective little survival thriller stocked with young, upcoming acting talent… that failed to find a distributor and then sat on the shelf for a full two years.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to see why.

As I said, The Final Terror is a survival thriller with a few slasher elements such as a mysterious killer and a young cast. But it’s decidedly not a slasher flick. Especially not in 1981 when the theaters were chock full o’ cult classics like Hell Night, My Bloody Valentine, and The Burning. Featuring a fairly light body count, no nudity, and little gore, The Final Terror must have look positively antiquated to distributors of the time, who gave it a pass until Comworld Pictures* noticed that many of the young faces in the film were becoming famous in 1983 and finally took pity on the poor movie.

Still, it was a case of too little, too late, and The Final Terror faded into obscurity pretty quickly after that. Which is a shame, since it’s a fun movie that deserved a better fate. Granted, several standard elements are there: Young people, a woodsy setting, and a mysterious killer. But the formula is changed up a bit. The young people here aren’t camp counselors, for one thing. In fact, they’re working for the U.S. Forestry Service and are clearing brush and clearing streams rather than smoking dope and fooling around.

Well, okay. It’s not “rather than” but more “in addition to.” Still, they’re a likable enough lot, except for Eggar (Joe Pantoliano, The Matrix), the creepy bus driver who becomes everyone’s number one suspect when bad things start happening. And those bad things start off with camp leader Mike (Mark Metcalf, Animal House and those Twisted Sister music videos) and his girlfriend disappearing. Cue a search through the dark woods, the discovery of a remote cabin, and the sudden desire by all involved to head back to civilization as fast as they can.

But it’s hard to make that trek when there’s a killer well-versed in natural camouflage and woodland survival tracking your every move, and the young campers find themselves having to resort to extreme measures if they want to get out of this forest alive.

Honestly, I don’t want to give away too much about this one, since it’s an obscure enough movie that there’s every chance you may not have ever even heard about it, and it deserves to be seen spoiler-free. I wouldn’t call The Final Terror a lost classic, necessarily, but it’s a solid flick with some real talent on both sides of the camera. There’s a surety of direction here and solid cinematography that puts this flick a step or two above your average slasher, at least on a technical level. Director Davis takes advantage of the woodsy location to make the film feel both expansive and claustrophobic by turn, and includes some well-shot night scenes, which are often a weakness in low-budget films.

Would it have done well had it been released into theaters amid the throng of slashers in 1981? Honestly, it’s hard to say. It lacks many of the crucial slasher elements that fans of the era were looking for, and it would have been one more movie in an already crowded field. Still, if you go into The Final Terror expecting a survival thriller you’ll likely have a good time. It’s a well-made flick with a few surprises along the way and a fun look at some young actors before they were famous.

And Mark Metcalf never complains about anyone wearing a Twisted Sister pin on their uniform. Not even once!

*Most famous for releasing BMX Bandits with Nicole Kidman in 1983.

Intermission!

• So who are the other young actors involved? Well, the big names that finally got The Final Terror a release were…
• Daryl Hannah, who had just appeared in Blade Runner
• Adrian Zmed, who was a regular on the T.J. Hooker TV series
• And Rachel Ward, who had become a star thanks to her role in The Thorn Birds television mini-series.
• Add in solid work from John Friedrich (The Wanderers), Lewis Smith (The Heavenly Kid), Ernest Harden, Jr. (White Men Can’t Jump), and Akosua Busia (The Color Purple) and The Final Terror rivals The Burning for a youthful cast who would go on to big things.
• The version of The Final Terror that’s commonly available is through Shout Factory. They had no film negatives or interpositives to work with, and so assembled their cut of the film as best they could through the use of six copies supplied by film collectors.