Don't Go In The Woods:
Remembering Cherry, Dick & All Their Friends
Dan Bundik (For Madelynn), 10.01.06
My friends and I never had wild
and crazy all-night parties back
in high school. Usually, they took
place at Matt Tobin’s house.
Matt was the youngest of four and
his parents knew that he was going
to have parties so they just let
it ride. We used to have people
over, watch movies, eat pizza and
laugh a lot. Matt and I (with our
friend Eric) would usually pick
up the videos a couple hours before
the fun began.
A lot of strange movies passed through
there. I remember I
Spit On Your Grave
quieting everyone down. Buried
Alive (Beyond the Darkness)grossing out us and making us
laugh. Faces of Death 2
was watched while we ate pizza to
see if anyone got ill. Bad
Taste made us laugh
a lot. There was only one film that
Matt and I previewed before everyone
showed up. The cover looked fun.
It was a slasher and it was 1989.
What teen could resist the call?
It was called Don’t
Go In The Woods —
and we never made it past the first
half hour.
(Let me just say that I could only
start watching slasher films or
gory films when I was around fourteen.
But, I used to read about them a
lot. I’d first read about
Don’t Go In The
Woods when Joe Bog
Briggs raved about it in Joe
Bob Goes To the Drive In. For
once, his list of how people got
killed fitted the movie perfectly.)
It was too good. We couldn’t
believe our eyes. The music, the
acting, the dubbing, the lack of
any characterization for the people
being killed. We couldn’t
believe it. We laughed a bit but
basically were stunned. We stopped
the film after a while because we
wanted to share it with everyone.
Then, the party changed direction
or ended early or something. We
never saw the rest of it. But, what
we did sat in our minds and never
left.
I think most fans of Trash Cinema
have an extremely voracious period.
It’s like when you discover
the world of jazz or classical music
(or rock). You may start by finding
one album you like. The first Jazz
album that grabbed me was the Miles
Davis collection under the Ken Burns’
Jazz line. One day, you stroll in
the music store and that area (“JAZZ”)
is no longer the area you pass through
on the way to the DVDs. It’s
now filled with all sorts of amazing
music waiting for you to discover
it. Start with Miles go to Coltrane
go to Monk go to Ornette Coleman.
They’re good for you. I went
through the same thing with the
Trash Films. Suddenly, all those
films go from being things you ignore
or look at and kind of don’t
see to “Where do I start?”
Alphabetically was tempting but
would never work. (How long until
I get to Zombie?)
So, you just start renting. If it
looks good or has a great title
or if it looks terrible, grab it.
For every 4 films you’d rent,
one would be a waste of time. One
would be worth the viewing. One
would be worth a second watch. One
would go in The Library. Hello,
Don’t Go In The
Woods.
I was at the start of my hoarding
time when I saw the smallest portion
of this insanity. Something from
my formative years that really,
really struck me and stuck with
me. This isn’t nostalgia,
though. As Walter Kerr said in his
great book The Silent Clowns,
“Nostalgia depends on the
absence of what is longed for, survives
only as recollection.” It
fades when your re-encounter whatever
it was years later. For example,
I grew up with The Electric
Company. I hadn’t
seen it in more than 20 years. I
bought the Shout Factory DVD set.
It’s still great. Oh sure,
there are bits where I say, “I
remember this!” and the memories
pour back but most of it is just
plain good. Whereas I also grew
up watching The Munsters,
so I bought the first season DVD
set when it came out. 12 episodes
in, I was in pain. Unfunny and oh-so
repetitive. I should have let nostalgia
keep me warm there because that
memory is now tarnished. Now, I
don’t dive into TV shows I
grew up with as quickly because
once that nostalgia goes all you
have is whatever you’re revisiting.
And, if it isn’t for you or
isn’t very good, it can be
tough to grab those old memories
again.
This article contains reminiscences
but deals with a movie that is as
vitally strange now as it was in
1997 and 1993 and 1989. It exists
outside of time, in its own odd
bubble, and is better because of
it.
I went to college in Ithaca,
NY. I watched a lot of “classic”
films. A lot of great cinema. And,
in my spare time, I drove down the
hill into town and rented every
sleazy or creepy thing I could find.
It took a lot of driving and three
video stores but Shows To Go had
it: Don’t Go
In The Woods. I watched
it once, alone. Then, I watched
it with a group who came to feel
as I did, “This film is nuts!”
It seemed to be the most incompetent
thing we’d ever seen. It was
wild. Then, something weird happened.
Nights got very cold in Ithaca.
On one of these nights (actually
early morning, 2AM), I came home
from somewhere to my tiny single
room. I still had energy so I threw
on Don’t Go In
The Woods and lay back
in bed. The snow fell outside; my
room was chilled because I’ve
always liked it that way. I started
watching. About fifteen minutes
in, I was terrified. The music,
the strange acting, the disconnected
dubbing, the senseless killing of
random people. It was almost too
much. My survival instincts kicked
in and I fell asleep during the
manhunt portion of the film. But,
the next day, I knew I had something
special here. In a strange twist
that you just can’t imagine,
I ran into Matt on a semester break.
He had a gift from the adult bookstore
he worked in. It was one of those
stores that had non-porno magazines
and movies in the front and naughtiness
behind the curtains. “I saw
this and I had to grab it for you.
Maybe someday we can watch it.”
With a large $79.95 sticker on the
front, Don’t
Go In The Woods was
handed to me. It is the VHS copy
I still own today. Although, I’ve
never watched it with Matt or any
of my once-close friends from High
School.
I used to play a game during this
film called “Tell me the names
of the four main campers”.
Whoever could do it first, won nothing
but smug self-satisfaction and a
feeling of superiority over their
peers. But, it shows something,
I think. A certain element that
some of the best Trash Films have.
They don’t live in the same
world that “regular”
films do. You can expect nothing
and you must to try to accept everything
that you’re not expecting.
The lack of motivation for the killer
is a good example of this. He probably
does have motivation but it’s
either implied or unimportant. It
is not just a “revenge”
motivated spree or an “I’m
your mother’s cousin’s
lover’s second wife”
twist-thing. The actual plot of
the movie is simplicity. All people
who pass through a certain area
of the Utah woods are viciously
killed by a wild man who lives in
a ratty, old cabin filled with knickknacks
taken from his victims. When the
disappearances get out of hand,
the police go in to find him. In
the end, well, watch it. It is a
film that does not require you to
pay attention to its plot but not
because it’s plot is stupid
but because it is so simple. Why
do we not get the names of people
who enter the woods? Because it
is not important. The film is not
about creating characters that you
care about and then killing them.
It’s about killing everybody
with no rhyme or reason. It’s
about setting up this crazed atmosphere
and trying to keep it permeating
through the whole film.
I can’t make a case for any
of this idiosyncratic filmic behavior
being intentional. Maybe when the
DVD comes out it will transpire
that James Bryan did have a huge
master plan. He may have set a series
of events in motion that led to
his magnum opus of slasher horror.
But, wouldn’t it be best if
we just never found out? Why do
we need to know everything about
everything? Aren’t a few things
best left shrouded in darkness?
Regardless, when the DVD arrives,
you should go out and buy it. Support
the companies that put out these
great films. Whether the extras
will entice you is another matter.
I’m going to try and ignore
them but I don’t know for
how long. Maybe the DVD should include
a remastered print and a “video”
print so we can keep the film preserved
on DVD but not have to lose the
way we know it. From perusing the
web, I’ve seen that a lot
of people have heard about this
film and, I think, will be severely
disappointed when it’s readily
available and it doesn’t turn
out to be whatever they think it
should be. (A movie like The
Last Slumber Party,
a favorite of mine, is almost never
talked about by anyone so its DVD
release was a wondrous bit of joy
because it snuck in.)
It’s doubly tricky because
the film was on the final Video
Nasty list. So, it’s taken
on a notoriety that it cannot hold
up to under those circumstances.
It’s a different sort of film
from Cannibal Holocaust
or The Beast in Heat
or, really, most of the European
films that fill the list. It’s
not the same sort of American horror
as Last House on the
Left or Fight
For Your Life. It’s
more in the area of Axe
or Bloodeaters
or Mardi
Gras Massacre.
People who know of the film from
the Infamous List are going to be
confused and dismissive. I think,
in fact, most people will be less
than thrilled unless they step into
it relatively fresh, which might
be impossible. Even the Don’t
Go In The Park
DVD release had a prominent display
of its “Video Nasty”
status printed on it. They banned
these films for all sorts of reasons.
Don’t Go In The
Woods is gory and
rather nasty but if you go in expecting
an Italian cannibal feast or Nazi
film or anything along those lines,
you’ll be disappointed. You
always get more than you expect
from a deranged Italian film (Patrick
Still Lives and the
poker, anyone?) but you’re
almost always on familiar ground.
The films have a certain look, they
share actors, and they have the
same dubbed voices speaking for
everyone. Don’t
Go In The Woods is
all on its own. So, it’s easier
to denigrate but, being so individual,
it can be easier to appreciate,
if you’re in the mood.
To those of you who do watch it
and love it, come on in. There are
a lot of us already at the bar wondering
if James Bryan was a mental patient
who did this before, after or for
therapy. Some great films get better
the more you know about them. Citizen
Kane is one of the
best on any given day but you can
appreciate it even more when you
learn a little about film and what
it did for the medium. Some films
lose part of the joy when they get
“fixed up” and you learn
everything about them. Can anyone
watch The Evil Dead
now the same way people in the 80’s
did? God Bless you if you can but
the film’s too bright now
and most people who come to it seem
to arrive via Army of
Darkness so they can’t
stop laughing. (I laughed here and
there when I first saw it but it
also scared me silly.) Don’t
Go In The Woods should
remain hidden in obscurity. It should
always be a vague sort of legendary
thing. It won’t be after the
DVD release, probably. We’ll
have to see what happens. We can
re-evaluate from there.
In early 1996, my friend, Scott,
and I began having a weekly “Movie
Night”. Once a week, we’d
get together with popcorn and soda
pop, generally later in the evening
and watch something fun. We’d
trade off picks. Scott started off
showing Sam Peckinpah films. I began
with Don’t Go
In The Woods. He loved
it. Over the next year-and-a-half
of movie nights, we probably watched
that one six times. Generally, whenever
there were a bunch of people coming
over. Don’t Go
In The Woods became
the “crowd special”.
It was amazing. We could always
get a crowd of folks enthralled
by the insanity going on on-screen.
It was great. I saw Scott a month
ago at a showing of Don’t
Go Near The Park. He’s
doing well. Maybe we’ll have
another movie night again. Who knows?
I was excited to hear that for his
last birthday he assembled all his
friends together and watched Don’t
Go In The Woods. That’s
a good time!
In my experience, the tricky thing
with audiences and “so bad
they’re good movies”
is that once people are put into
the mindset to watch this sort of
film they have no further ability
to discern between “So bad
it’s good” and anything
else. When they’ve come to
laugh at a film, they will laugh
and insult, regardless of what is
showing on the screen. In fact,
this happens whenever I see any
sort of strange film in a theater.
I don’t know if it’s
the Mystery Science Theater
3000 mindset or what but it
can be a little annoying. People
hear that Headless Eyes
(for example) is a “bad movie”
and so, instantly, people start
yelling things. Automatically, there
is nothing about the film that is
not ridiculous. When the film does
something odd, the response is “What
the hell is this?” and a laugh.
If this were a David Lynch film,
people would sit and try to figure
it out. With Headless
Eyes, “It’s
a bad movie so it’s incompetent.
It’s nothing but a laugh.”
Of course, that kind of attitude
is pure balls.
(On rare occasions, I’ve seen
a crowd that’s started yelling
shut up by what they were seeing.
Blackenstein
started with people yelling and
ended with silence. Maybe everyone
fell asleep but, when the lights
went up, they looked awake. Awake
and confused.)
Don’t Go In The
Woods is one of these
films where most people laugh and
laugh and laugh. Even during the
brutal killings, the laughs flow.
(Although, when the man in the sleeping
bag gets his throat slit by the
hunting knife, people tend to Can
It.) During the quite creepy scene
where Joanie is hanging from the
sleeping bag and sees the killer
approaching, people laugh because
she starts tearing up the bag to
see what’s going on and then
to get out. “God! How’s
she going to sleep in that?”
“Ha! She’s stuck up
there!” It’s a creepy
scene. I can understand the momentum
of a crowd but pull it out a bit
and have a peek around. There are
some creepy and strange things happening
here.
The opening scene where the young
woman runs and runs is very disconcerting.
Who is she? Was she jogging through
the woods? Who is chasing her? Does
she die? We never see or hear from
her again. Your response depends
on you. If your agenda is set when
you arrive, all those questions
make the scene laughable. If you
approach the film open-minded, well,
it still might be laughable. But,
it might not. It was the oddness
of the opening killings that hooked
me on the film. The lack of extensive
characterization for our main characters
intrigued me. Their first scene
is a dialogue-free shot of them
walking. They could be another group
who gets killed instantly. They’re
not but who knows at this point
in the narrative.
I used to have the first thirty
seconds of Dale and his mother on
an answering machine. (You know,
the guy with the camera and his
Mom with the big hat. They appear
about ten minutes into the film.)
“Dale! Dale! Wait for me!”
“I just want to get a shot
of the train pulling in!”
Followed by the bwop-bwop-bwop comedy
music. I didn’t say a word.
You just heard the train whistle,
these strange people talk, the music
and then a beep. I got the best
responses from friends and family.
Do you need to ask why Dale brings
his mom up there? I always thought
that there must be a spot to pull
off the road nearby and Dale just
wandered a little too far. Who knows?
A film that leaves mystery behind,
intentional or not, is always watchable.
(Speaking of leaving mystery behind,
here’s a little extra something
that doesn’t quite fit in
anywhere else. A friend from college
who loved the movie told me that
on two separate occasions, he had
been showing this movie to female
friends and it ended up in massive
make-out sessions. Whether the women
were just trying to get away from
the movie or whether the movie has
some sort of aphrodisiac effect,
I couldn’t say. True story,
with love from me to you.)
I love the Fat Sheriff. “When’d
and how’d it happen, Maggie?”
I love the significant looks that
Dr. Maggie and the Deputy give each
other in the hospital cafeteria.
(I never noticed it until a woman
at one of our viewings said, “Do
those two have something going on?”)
I love Cherry and Dick with all
my heart. Whenever I see the Farrah
Fawcett poster, I think, “Did
Dick just hang that recently or
has that been there for a thousand
years?” Who can resist yelling,
”Come out of there, you jerk
you!” along with Dick? Who
can resist hoping that Cherry will
be able to close the van doors the
first time she tries? And, who doesn’t
cheer when, with the help of editing,
she slams that doors shut the second
time? Cherry, you are one in a million.
No, make that one in a bazillion.
Even the lower impact scenes have
a thousand and one delights in them.
There’s that wonderful scene
in the police station with all those
random characters coming in and
out of frame. “Ooooh, look
at that guy!” “Who is
she talking to?” You could
break this film down moment-by-moment
and find something in every nook
and cranny.
I love the half-hearted feel to
the police investigation until Peter
and Ingrid show up. The Law chats
with some people; the Sheriff goes
up in a small plane—that’s
about it, really. I’m not
sure how many Missing Person reports
Our Large Sheriff has received but
it doesn’t seem to be many.
In the scene with the roller skating
gal, The Sheriff’s actually
out in the woods. He wanders into
the killer’s territory early
on but nothing happens. So, he wanders
out. The sense of space here is
odd but adds to the strangeness
of the film. The Sheriff and the
posse stroll in and out. Craig knows
the woods; the others don’t.
That’s why he’s killed
first. The others get instantly
lost. Clearly, the killer knows
every inch of the woods. The oddest
thing here, if you’re trying
to figure out the layout of the
area, is the fact that the Sheriff
seems to know that someone lives
at the old cabin in the woods. As
I’ve said elsewhere, if the
Sheriff knew that the madman lived
there, he should have sent the madman
a package. When the nut came out
to sign for it, they could have
jumped him.
I was watching Don’t
Go In The Woods the
other day. It was the first time
I’d watched it in about a
year. Even films and albums you
love can wear themselves out through
over-familiarity, so I had stayed
away from it. DVD rumors had been
flying around for almost a year
so I’d been keeping cool and
watching other things. But, on this
day, I got comfortable on the couch,
threw the movie in and hit Play.
It was still there. All of it. Every
moment of it. Astounding. It was
doubly great because, I’d
forgotten this, with every viewing
I see something or hear something
that I didn’t notice before.
This time? It’s in the shot
that’s on the back of the
video box. Cocky Peter is walking
past the other three, who have stopped
hiking, saying “ Come on you
guys! We’re losing the light!”
When Peter passes Craig, Craig looks
up and gives him a great “Getouttahere!”
hand gesture. After I saw that,
I began to drift into a half sleep.
I was very comfortable. Suddenly,
my eyes popped wide open and I realized
something —
You can laugh at a film as much
as you want. But, some films aren’t
made for everyone. Some because
they’re esoteric or deliberately
paced or foreign. Others because
they don’t match up with anything
else we’ve seen. If your template
for movies is whatever the big sequel
is coming out this summer, well,
I can’t help you. This isn’t
for you. Sure, you can laugh at
it. It’s funny. But, if you’ve
only come to laugh, hit the road.
Maybe my Grandma will go see a Tim
Allen movie with you. (You can go
to bingo afterwards. Maybe she’ll
make you a perogi) Don’t
Go In the Woods is
a very strange film and (here’s
what I realized this time around)
it could just very well be The Most
Perfect Movie ever made.
How does that bit of hyperbole strike
you, hot pants?
It’s obviously a complete
load. But, I’ve seen the film
twenty times. I think Star
Wars is the only other
film I’ve seen that often
and, I’m sick to death of
Star Wars.
Why do I go back to James Bryan’s
oddball exercise? Could it be the
way he makes films? Possibly. I’ve
seen Hellriders,
with Tina Louise and Adam West,
and it has some of the same feel
but not a lot. The Executioner
Part 2, however, is
clearly made by the same man. “He
still has a lot to learn”
doesn’t apply if you get it
done without learning it.
People love Don’t
Go In The Woods. Much
of it is scorn but not all. It’s
not a Plan 9 from Outer
Space for a new generation
because, unlike Plan
9, it gets some things
right: brutal killings, a creepy
killer, tremendous locations and
a sense of isolation that really
works. The music is unique and it
has a killer theme song. Could it
be that indefinable something that
certain films have? Well...
I could, almost literally, go on
forever about this film. So, I’ve
decided to wind it down and wrap
it up by mentioning two more kick-ass
elements in the film.
1) I love comic relief that doesn’t
seem like comic relief until you’ve
watched it quite a few times. I’m
not talking about obvious bad jokes.
I’m talking about whole scenes
passing without anything that looks
like a joke. When you go back to
it later, you suddenly realize that
that was meant to be comedy. Winterbeast
is my favorite example of this.
The film is chocked full of comedy
but it is so distractingly (wonderfully)
cheap and so (beautifully) incompetent
that it just looks odd. It looks
like bad actors delivering rotten
lines. But, it is meant to be loaded
with gags. Don’t
Go In The Woods has
that with our policeman and, to
a lesser extent, the wheelchair
guy. But, you have to know how to
shoot comedy. If you have Laurel
and Hardy in your film, you can
turn the camera on and let them
go. The Sheriff & The Deputy
are not the same caliber of comedy
duo. The disconnected dubbing makes
wry comments even stranger. The
scene in the general store is loaded
with comedy gags about ornithologists
and sight gags involving pinball
machines. But, it just feels strange.
After a few viewings, the pure comedy
leaks onto your shoe. You don’t
laugh. My response was “Ahh!
That explains it!” The plane
scene is another example. The scene
has a lot of wry little lines but
one can get easily distracted by
two things: 1) wondering how the
Sheriff got into the tiny plane
& 2) giggling at how funny the
reaction shots of the pilot are.
All we see is the back of his head
and hear his disembodied voice.
Horror can come quite easily to
films like this. Comedy is a little
tougher. You can see the talent
strain. If it wasn’t post-dubbed,
you’d probably be able to
hear them too.
2) Do I need to mention how weird
H. Kingsley Thurber’s music
is? Strange noises, industrial sounds,
comedy bwops, acoustic guitar strumming.
It’s all here and it is all
mad. Was H. Kingsley some sort of
eccentric and crazed musical genius?
Who knows? His other score, for
Frozen Scream,
uses some of the same music but
has a few new themes. Although that
movie is incredibly bonkers, the
music isn’t as good. In Don’t
Go In The Woods, every
few minutes there seems to be some
new sort of music playing. It is
either incredibly egregious or oddly
appropriate. I think most of the
time it works. When it doesn’t,
well, it certainly grabs your attention.
And, of course, there is the theme
song. If you weren’t convinced
that this movie was made by aliens
or people whose life experience
would have made Kaspar Hauser look
cosmopolitan, the theme song should
convince you. You’ll never
be able to hear The Teddy Bear’s
Picnic again. The movie ends with
a scene of brutality followed by
goofy cop behavior. Then, the theme
song kicks in. It is goofier than
almost any horror film theme song
you can think of. More so than the
Faces of Death
song during the credits of Faces
of Death IV or the
Psychos in Love
theme and that one was meant to
be goofy. Sometimes all the elements
just come together. The song is
the perfect length too. It is short
and sweet and ends when the credits
do. The film is a total package
from the “Spectacular Entertainment”
logo at the start until the song
ends and the credits fade. On the
video, we even got a shot of the
Vestron video logo to wrap the whole
thing up.
It doesn’t get better. |
