Scalps

I had always heard about Scalps as people say it's Fred Olen Ray's best horror flick. Well if this is his best, I'd hate to see the rest! The film starts off a little dull, but starts to get better as the group make their way into the mountains. The atmosphere is quite creepy in a low-budget kind of way and reminded me slightly of The Evil Dead, plus the location is similar to The Hills Have Eyes. I love the shot of the rotting skeleton when the car goes past, but no one sees it.

Once they have set up camp, the group hear mysterious drumming, see strange faces in campfires, and so on. There are some hilarious lines such as "I broke a fingernail!", and also when the girl says that the drumming is coming from hell. The scalping scene is probably the highlight of the film, and is brilliantly done - it really surprised me. When the girls throat is cut, she writhes around in agony and it looks realistic. Also the part where he removes her scalp is really cool. There's another good gore scene when a mans head is chopped off, but it's not quite as impressive.

Overall, Scalps is worth a watch if you can tolerate low budget horror. It's nothing amazing, but does have a low budget charm about it.