The Dark of the Forest.

Hello all. Happy Friday the 13th! In celebration I pulled the most relevant and unwatched camping slasher out of the pile, Don Jones' 1982 joint The Forest.

Two couples inadvisably go camping in the woods, not aware of the nefarious fate that awaits them.

Through the opening credits, I was serenaded with smooth trumpeting jazz as I watched a couple march through the serena Californian woods. I assumed these two were our protagonists, but nope, they got butchered within minutes. Okay, maniac in woods got it. I then wondered if this was going to be Don't Go In the Woods where people just get set up and knocked down like bowling pins, but no, we then shifted to another horror.

Traffic. The real horror of this movie. I've been attending TIFF all week and that means battling Toronto gridlock. Sometimes I think I'd rather eat a killer's knife than face that. It is at least quicker. But I digress. Two couples, who I wondered were actually married by the way they talked to each other, try to one-up each other about who is the better camper. Psst, the answer is none of them.

They all decide to go out into woods, but not together – because Battle of the Sexes – and it all goes tits up from there. Sharon (Tomi Barrett) & Teddi (Ann Wilkinson) leave, secretly hoping the men, Steve (Dean Russell aka wish JK Simmons) and Charlie (John Batis) are right behind them, which they are – until car trouble puts them a good half-day behind. After trekking several hours, our ladies set up camp and during the night things take a bizarre turn.

Yes, The Forest is about a crazy dude turned cannibal living in the woods, but it also about the ghosts of his dead family roaming around, as well. See, he murdered this wife for cheating – something makes me think Jones has issues with women and relationships – and ran off into the woods with his kids. Said kids then offed themselves for a number of reasons, the least of which could have been the trauma of being locked in the bedroom closet while their mom boinked the water heater, err refridgerator repairman.

The kid on the right is named Corky Pigeon, I shit you not.

I have to admit that even though this movie is fifty-percent hiking footage, I was slightly invested in whether these city slickers were going to be able to catch up with their wives in time. And surprisingly, even as chauvanistic as most of this movie is, it's Sharon who ends up saving the day.

So, even though it doesn't have the crap-tastic flair of Don't Go In The Woods or the cinematography or set peices of Just Before Dawn or the soon-to-be star power of The Final Terror, however it is still a mildly entertaning oddity with a theme song that slaps. Dude apparently put up his house to make this movie so the least I can do is give it a whirl. Bizarrely, at some point the renter of this tape - from Jumbo Video says the tag - recorded a 1995 episode of The Rush Limbaugh Show on the end. Oh, the horror...