The Final Terror

At one point after the group of forest rangers escapes the night bus attack, Rachel Ward exclaims "I can't see a thing". Ditto for the viewing audience, because even the daytime scenes are so poorly lit that you will have little sense of what is taking place on screen. It's pretty difficult to scare people, when you can't see what is supposed to be scary. Technically "The Final Terror" is a disaster, and it's really a shame, because hunted in the woods films are one of my favorite genres. After seeing (or rather not seeing) "The Final Terror", I will stick with "Hunter's Blood", which is a great film of this type. Other than a strong opening and a surprisingly good conclusion, there is very little entertainment value here. Don't let the name actors get you excited either, because Rachel Ward and Darryl Hannah are just faces in the crowd, with zero character development. My advice, skip it. - MERK

More well known for its soon-to-be star cast than for the film itself, The Final Terror kinda came and went in theaters and was dumped onto video via a terrible, washed out and impossibly dark transfer where you couldn't tell what was what.

Thankfully, Scream Factory have found a print that looks half way decent and released it on Blu-Ray. For the first time, one can actually see that there was some talent involved here, even if it was in service of a less than exciting narrative.

While the story seems like your average "young hot people getting killed in the woods" flick, The Final Terror does offer some fairly inventive twists. For starters, the killer is a genuinely unnerving presence, blending into trees and shrubbery using camo gear. Also, the cast of characters, while slightly undefined, are smarter than your usual lot. When they get the first inkling of danger, they don't split up or start humping each other - they actually stick together and work as a team.

The only downside to these smart characters is that there are only two murders before the gang catches on (unless you count the completely unrelated prologue), so it doesn't leave room for a lot of isolated attack scenes or extra murders to brighten up the pacing and keep the danger alive. If only one or two of them had to go pee or something...

Susan Justin's score is pretty cool, too, and keeps things exciting.

The inspirational for this sub-standard, low-budget woodland slasher/survival horror is obvious ('Friday the 13th'and 'Deliverance'), but even then it took the hackneyed clichés and kind of added its own messy slab to the well-worn formula. Was it for the better? I don't know? What fell by the wayside was the overall pacing due to there being too little to the transparent story and simply having the characters going through the motions. Too much dead air with a small body count and not enough thrills. When they were inserted, it was feeble. Other then a decent opening (with that smoking theme song) and thunderously outlandish closing, in between was a lot of repetitively aimless parading. It's easy through those parts because of the beautifully authentic setting that was fluidly photographed. Although the nocturnal scenes are poorly lit. Director Andrew Davis (who would go onto to be a pivotal action deliverer with titles like 'The Package' (1989), 'Under Siege (1992) and 'The Fugitive' (1993) and many more) does a quite passive, if workman-like job without the setting the world alight. There's true grit, but the attacks are telegraphed and rushed leaving it struggling to sustain any sort of momentum in its attempts of suspense. Atmosphere on the other hand, breathes some starkness and the environment moodily blends well with Susan Justin's eerily unhinged music score and penetrating forest sounds. The cast is more interesting to look at on paper, than actually watching their performances. Really the material doesn't allow much room for growth and makes them all unappealingly disposable. Too many I guess. Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed and Rachel Ward are fine. Joe Pantoliano in a short role makes the most in an over-exaggeratedly on-edge turn and Lewis Smith's unpredictable character kept one amused. It has its moments, but fails to really come out of first-gear.

THE FINAL TERROR is an average horror movie. There were a couple of startling moments (the scene when the couple gets hacked or the sudden ending) but the bulk of the movie is really dull. The atmosphere is almost worthwhile. Almost. You see, the film is not gruesome enough or sweat-inducing enough to push the atmosphere into the dread-filled nightmare that a story like this needs in order to be memorable. We see a lot of moments where the people just hang around the campfire and bitch about this and that. And when the group goes to the the dilapidated house, all dressed up like Rambo, what little edge the film had disappeared instantly with that unintentionally funny bit. The idea of the young men and women taking a pro-active stance against the killer, in one united group, is original for a horror movie of this type but it's badly done here.

The big problem with the movie is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Something tells me the director didn't want to do just another horror movie. But every aspect of the movie is so weak that FINAL TERROR cannot overcome its horror trappings. The characters are almost nonexistent. Rachel Ward and the black girl have accents but where never told where they come from or how did they ever land in such a remote area. Because of this, and the fact that some actors are really miscast, there's very little credibility to the whole proceedings. It feels like the film was put together very quickly and with very little thought behind it.

The script is very weak. No characterization. No idea what to do with the dull bunch. No immediate sense of dread. We have no clue what's out there until the very end. And to make things even more annoying, the action often takes place at night and there are several moments when it's difficult to see what's going on. These dark scenes reminded me of HUMONGOUS. But unlike the underrated Canadian movie, FINAL TERROR's pitch black moments weren't deliberate. They were badly shot moments (made more confusing with the bad editing) which muddled up what little action there was in the story. The cinematography was excellent when there was light or the action took place during the day but the night time scenes, or even those scenes that took place in and around the cabin, were too dark for my taste.

The film gets interesting at the very end, but like many have pointed out already, the end is very sudden and abrupt. Too abrupt. The brief glimpse of the killer made me realize how dull and boring the young folks were. When a piece of walking rug with a knife is more interesting than the main characters of the movie, you know there's something wrong with the film.

But FINAL TERROR wasn't the worst film I've ever seen. Compared to DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, FINAL TERROR looks like a work of genius. It's just that there's very little going for it except for some beautiful scenery, one good murder scene, a creepy, under-used killer and a somewhat memorable (but sudden) ending.

It's easy to make the mistake of dismissing The Final Terror as just another instantly forgettable, derivative backwoods slasher: the characters are your usual array of one-dimensional psycho-fodder; the setting is the standard 'spooky woods located miles from civilisation'; there's the corny campfire legend that sets up the back story for the killer; and the film features several cribs from other similarly themed horror movies (most obviously John Boorman's Deliverance).

However, I think this film is a more important addition to the genre than it is given credit for: not only did it give director Andrew Davis (of The Fugitive fame) and several future Hollywood stars (Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, Joe Pantoliano, and...errr... Adrian Zmed?!?) a step up in their careers, but—and you can call me mad if you like—I am also convinced that The Final Terror was a big influence on the excellent Arnold Schwarzeneggar sci-fi/action movie Predator!

As Lloyd Grossman used to say in Through The Keyhole, 'Let's take a look at the evidence...'

The group of friends stranded in the wilderness; the strange creature who hunts them one-by-one; the pivotal moment where the hunter finally becomes the hunted; and the final showdown in which the killer is lured into a booby-trap made from a huge tree trunk. Let's face it.... all that's missing is a mini-gun!!!

Anyway, regardless of whether you subscribe to my Predator theory or not, The Final Terror is still a reasonably enjoyable way to pass the time, with some effective jump scares, a fair amount of atmosphere, and some lovely cinematography. I'd liked to have seen a bit more gore, some nudity from the ladies (this is a slasher, after all!), and Adrian Zmed get slaughtered (I still remember T. J. Hooker), but I suppose you can't have everything!

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.