- Directed by: Jason-Christopher Mayer
- Written by: Jason-Christopher Mayer
- Stars: Jen Dance, David J. Bonner, Shaun Paul Costello
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdYzqGm7i8
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a fairly generic serial killer in the woods kind of movie. We start out with a (Why is this dummy allowing his daughter to play hopscotch in the road?) origin story of the killer. Then time passes and a group of young people go camping, laughing off the stories of the deaths that lurk in the area. It’s well made, but just okay for entertainment value.
Spoilery Synopsis
November 2000. There’s a big outdoor party as credits roll. In the morning, one of the partiers runs over a girl in the road as her father watches.
Present Day. Doctor Owen talks to a patient and explains that her daughter is going to need time to recover. Later, we see Jenn at home eating dinner with her parents; they want her to go out with her friends now that she’s out of the mental hospital. Jenn calls her friend, Michelle, who tells her the legend of the father of the girl who got killed; he still hangs out in those woods killing people.
Mike, Danny, and Deron are going camping with Jenn, Michelle, and Angie. The three guys talk to Jared, who is very weird. Meanwhile, a man goes into a convenience store and kills the people inside.
The gang shows up at the deserted convenience store and steals some cases of beer. Jared offends the locals by trying to buy weed from them. The group is flagged down by a man who warns them that the woods are dangerous; the woods give him the willies. “I warned ya!”
They soon arrive at the spot and set up tents. Jenn is mopey, and Deron tries to cheer her up. Around the campfire, Daron tells them that the warnings from the harbinger weren’t wrong. Hunter Isth, the father of the little girl who died, vanished, but now people die in these woods regularly. Brandon and Tim, the angry locals from earlier, show up and join the group. They laugh at the bogie-man story.
Everyone pairs off for the night, and Deron and Jenn talk about why she’s so grumpy. The odd man out is Jared, who gets stabbed repeatedly by the killer, who shows up out of nowhere.
In the morning, no one can find Jared. Everyone argues. They spend all day looking for him, and when they get back to their camp, it’s all been ransacked. The car has been sabotaged as well. They all watch in terror as Angie is killed outside the car. Danny also gets it, whacked with a sledge hammer. Michelle gets stabbed with a machete. The numbers are dropping radically as Mike gets hooked.
Jenn loses her medications and totally loses her mind.
We cut to the killer, Hunter Isth, as he prepares weapons at his cabin. He’s got Michelle and Mike tied up in there, not dead yet after all. He drives nails into Mike’s head, which stops him from screaming. Michelle asks, “What do you want?” and he tells her for what seems like an hour and then saws her legs off.
Deron and Jenn run through the woods until they find a house. They go inside and find Michelle and Mike’s bodies. Deron gets into a fight with Hunter and he gets double-hammered.
Jenn catches up with Brandon and gets a ride into town. They don’t get far before Hunter stops them. She’s soon on her own again, stumbling through the woods. He catches her. As he strangles her, she grabs his knife and sticks it to him.
In the morning, Jenn wakes up on the side of a road. She’s soon picked up by a friendly driver, and we see a pair of hammers in the backseat.
Brian’s Commentary
Hunter Isth has some anger management issues. Why was Jenn in the hospital and what were those medications for? Who was that guy at the end? He wasn’t the killer, was he?
It took a long time for the action to start, but when it did, we got down to two or three characters very quickly.
It’s about as generic and bland as a slasher movie can be. It’s not terrible, but there’s nothing here to really recommend it, either.
Kevin’s Commentary
No, people shouldn’t drive drunk, but people do drive drunk. Which is why you shouldn’t let your child play hopscotch in the road. Which is why I had a problem with this movie right from the opening scene where dad is hanging out nearby while his daughter hopscotches on the road – not a residential street where people are driving slow and careful, but an open road that probably has a speed limit of 55. Then he was angry at the world after that and decided to be a serial killer.
It’s pretty well put together, but nothing special. I’d say I liked it more than disliked it.