Don’t Go in the Woods (1981)

This movie’s hairy homicidal maniac uses a crude wooden spear to get the job done—and so, it seems, did the editor of the film, as well. There are murder scenes here where you’re not even SURE who’s being stabbed. In other moments, you can’t tell where a character in a scene came from or which direction they’re running. Watch this sober and you’ll feel like you’re drunk. Not that you need to get too deep into the story here. It’s a simple set-’em-up and then chop-’em-up vintage slasher that racks up a body count in the high average range and where the blood is poured from buckets. When this film throws logic out the window, we don’t miss it that much. The weird sense of humor saves it. There’s the corny newlywed couple honeymooning in a van in the middle of the woods, the less-than-sensitive treatment of a guy in a wheelchair and a music score that sometimes sounds like the cheapest electronic keyboard at Toys R Us as played by someone who just started taking music lessons that week. Along the way are some oddly beautiful views of the misty Utah mountains. Directed by James Bryan who’s one of those rarely sung drive-in movie wackjobs who made everything from action flicks to pornography.