This attempted hybrid of The Hills Have Eyes, Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre can be regarded as either A) an ahead of its time precursor to the Blair Witch style of hand held forest terror, B) a blistering, satiric indictment of Reaganomics and its underside or C) quite simply one of the most stunningly atrocious films ever created.

The film starts in cinema verite style (read: looking like a cheap, unedited home video shot on an ancient Camcorder) with a squealing woman apparently running for her life from an unseen terror deep in the hostile mountainous forests of the Oregon backwoods. She scampers not very far before the thing chasing her catches up with her and (we guess) kills her – you see, it happens sort of off screen. Next, somewhere else in the forest, obviously not too far off, a group of young trekkers are heading out for a camping adventure while various other fools have flocked to the place like it was Palm Springs or some major tourist attraction. One nearby birdwatcher is splattered with some nasty gunk before he gets his cloth arm lopped off for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile our happy campers shack up for the night in the middle of the forest only to be savagely attacked by someone who looks like a cross between a rotund Taliban member, a Viking and Wurzel Gummage. Before this there is a quite surreal scene at a trailer where a gorgeous newlywed beauty is romancing her husband but finding that her mood is not quite as it should be. This bombshell, who’s acting is easily as awful as her sublime appearance, livens up proceedings with a memorably cameo.

The plot thickens as we slowly come to realize that there is a mad bagman hurtling up and down the forest carrying a shoe-shine boys little wooden box causing untold mayhem with his murderous attacks on all innocent passers by. Can there be no stopping this vicious, cackling scoundrel or will he proceed to reduce Oregon’s trekking community to dog food? Can anyone survive the nightmarishly grisly assault of the Viking, or more accurately perhaps, can anyone viewer survive the sheer, undiluted awfulness of this movie till the very end…….because despite the odds, if you do manage to watch till the end you will be rewarded with the highlight of the movie: the absolutely inspired theme song which must have been the final straw for the British censors who slapped a ban on the film which hasn’t been lifted till this day! All sing along now:
“Don’t go out in the woods tonight, You probably will be Thrilled,
Don’t go out in the woods tonight, You probably will be killed,
There’s a friendly beast who lurks about, likes to feast you won’t get out
without being killed and chopped up into little pieces.”

The ban is indeed mind-boggling though because the gore effects are so comically cheap that they induce laughter rather than revulsion – perhaps the film was simply deemed too awful for viewers not to be adversely affected and if that were indeed the case, it would be perfectly understandable. This film is phenomenally dreadful in every department – the background score must be one of the worst ever composed – as awful as the stupendously horrid Drive-in Massacre, a film that Don’t Go in the Woods shares numerous similarities such as the astoundingly ghastly acting, the hideously unappealing cast, the zero budget, and of course the stinking background music.

One first came across this notorious video nasty in the glory days of the nasties – the early 80’s. Video classification was still in its infancy and all sorts of dregs were appearing on video shelves week after week all over Europe. Our local video nasty peddler in Southfields near the famous hallowed tennis courts of S.W. 19 never missed out on any of the nasties and we were among his first customers for this particular title. 21 years on and the memory had grown distinctly hazy though one did remember distinctly that it had a quite awe-inspiringly horrendous soundtrack and also that the film had left one dumbstruck with its unashamed awfulness. 21 years on, the movie still has the power to astound with its stunning ineptitude however the mind still boggles as to how the deranged British censors saw it fit to ban the film. Most likely the producers begged Mary Whitehouse and her nasty busters to get the film banned as clearly it was such a stinker that no one in their right mind would want to watch it unless you are demented like we are.

The film is worthy of all the ridicule and derision it has had heaped on it by the five people who have seen it and it deserves every accolade of awfulness and ought to rank very highly on the list of the worst films ever made along with its cousin Drive-in Massacre with which it has so much in common. Both movies were obviously designed for the fading early 80’sDrive-in circuit as fodder for randy teens to make out to, which hardly excuses their appalling lack of any shred of quality. Don’t Go in the Woods is as abysmal as any film one could ever wish to see and for those who like their movies truly rancid, this one will do very nicely. The scene where one of our heroes gores an innocent to death by mistake and then proceeds to plead “Oh, I am sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” as the fellow lies dying, has to be seen to be believed. The film is undoubtedly a towering piece of shite. So, for those who can’t appreciate ghastly movies, you might want to give this one a miss because it doesn’t get much ghastlier than this one. Majestically foul, almost inspired in its awfulness.