Memorial Valley Massacre

Wow - this movie fails on so many levels and yet for fans of real cinema "cheese" it is a hoot. See, a caveman has been living i the woods for twenty years and no one has ever seen him, but damnit, they open a new campground right near his hunting ground. And this Caveboy hates noise and you how noisy humans were in the late 1980's. The gore is laughable, the acting isn't even community theatre bad, the score is so bizarre and all over the place that I would buy it if I ever came across it - that's how unique and strange it is. Almost every scene starts with the "actors" literally waiting for the Action cue from the director and then they start the scene - so the editing is awful too. Lots of bad speeches - some of the script is Ed Wood level bad. My pals and I laughed at this one a lot. A real cheesfest!

This is one of those typical late 80's slashers, missing the point completely. In the beginning of the decade, the genre had it's high moments but later on, as this movies exemplifies, the dynamic wasn't there anymore.

Memorial Valley Campground is set to open and it's money driven owner won't let a dead dog found in the well delay the grand opening. No water, snakes and a unfinished road are some of the other attractions of the camp. The son's owner shows up, after finishing college he wanted to do something more in touch with his sensitive nature. The charismatic ranger in charge of the camp, doesn't seem very pleased with the energetic young man, but he has no choice but to accept his presence. Soon he'll have other more serious problems to take care of. The killer lives in a cave, so cave boy will come out and provoke chaos among campers. His reasons, unfinished business between him and the ranger.

cave boy as gotta be one of the worse "bad guys" I've ever seen, a person just feels like grounding him, he's really not effective in his role. The rest of the acting is also pretty bad. The movie's score is childish and comedic. There's a couple of gory scenes (cheesy but worth mentioning), which may seem surprising because by the time they take place, you're convinced this is a comedy, not a horror movie.

Plot = Memorial Valley Campsite has just opened for business even though it's far from finished. A bunch of campers set up camp, unknowing of the terror that awaits them in the forest. You see, a Tarzan-like forest boy does not approve of the recent changes in Memorial Valley and has decided to start killing the campers.

Well I can say that I've definitely never seen a movie about a killer caveman before, cheesy for the first hour in other words just ain't that good only one person dies during that time, however once the movie gets going the last thirty minutes is pretty entertaining as should they be seeing as how fourteen people get killed in the final half hour of the movie.

This is one of the last backwoods slashers that we got from the 80s and I think it's pretty safe to say that this was one of the movies that killed the trend. The movie is obviously very low-budget with a bunch of incompetent actors and an even more incompetent special effects team. The gore effects are ridiculous. Memorial Valley Massacre is far from a flawless film but as I said before, the final 30 minutes kind of make the first hour feel worth while.

All in all it may not be a very good movie but it's quite enjoyable during the last thirty minutes which is why I've given a 5 instead of a 4.

Forgettable, by-the-numbers 80's slasher in the woods, which is saved from total mediocrity by an unusually high body count and a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek humor during the first hour. The beautiful forest region of Memorial Valley is being turned into a fancy camping site by a rich business man. Various campers begin to arrive, even though the site is far from ready yet, and so does a primitive caveman killer. At first, it simply looks like the scarcely dressed Tarzan Junior is butchering campers because they're messing with the ecological balance in Memorial Valley, but there's also a personal vendetta. He has been living in the deep forests for almost twenty years, and his presumable father – who just happens to be in charge of the campsite – never managed to track him down. The murders in this low-budget slasher are pretty imaginative, albeit completely gore-free and rather tame. A couple of insufferable characters are massacred with ingenious booby-traps (pits with stakes, falling trunks, ...) but the cave boy himself is one of the most UN-menacing killers in the history of horror movies. His total lack of evil charisma is even funnier when a supposedly tough and macho biker runs away from him, screaming with fear like a little girl... Multiple other reviewers also pointed out already that it's quite remarkable that our Mowgli has the knowledge to blow up a caravan without ever having seen one before in his life! There are loads of amusing little stupidities in "Memorial Valley Massacre" and they effectively distract you from the total lack of tension, plausibility and gore. Robert C. Hughes' previous movie, the fascinating survival horror flick "Hunter's Blood", was a lot better and more tense but still this quickie is recommended to undemanding horror fans. The character of the retired military general (played by veteran William Smith) is truly cool.

A rich landowner and a rugged, alcoholic outdoorsman open up a campground to raise money for surrounding projects (shopping malls and such). But in the maiden weekend of camping, the campers face a bear, nasty storms and a hermit caveman who is none too fond of his peace being ruined.

The film has some standard 80s staples: punk kids, a few token blacks (though, unlike many horror films, not killed off right away), a campground (see "Friday the 13th" or "Sleepaway Camp"), metal music, topless girls, etc. If you like 80s horror (and I do) you will find some familiar themes here and that's a good thing, in my opinion. But even a good set-up doesn't always make for the best follow-through.

The death scenes are really weak. And the problem with that is, I am not sure if this movie was trying to be a horror film or a comedy. It's not scary enough to really be a true horror film, but not funny enough to be a comedy. What it ends up being is a bland mix of both. The same goes for the caveman: he is in no way threatening, but also not really funny. So what happens? He ends up just being bland and dumb, being more silly than anything. Not to mention the makeup department did a horrible job, and his background story makes no sense. (I won't give it away, but let's just say he comes across a lot more primitive than you'd expect.)

Somebody, somewhere loves this film and probably watches it and screens it for friends. I am not that guy. I have no doubt I will some day watch it again, but I can't say it will be soon and I can't imagine why I would unless there was some sort of money or alcohol involved. If you need to see one more 80s film where campers get hacked up, this is your film. Otherwise, just listen to Weird Al's "Nature Trail to Hell"... it's actually less cheesy and more graphic.