Campsite Massacre [The Final Terror] ** (1983, John Friedrich, Adrian Zmed, Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, Joe Pantoliano) – Classic Movie Review 12,786

Andrew Davis’s 1983 horror thriller film Campsite Massacre [The Final Terror] is a slickly made, if tacky and derivative teen pic, in which a group of rangers go camping and start getting killed by a slasher stalker in the woods.

‘He has found you. Screaming won’t help anymore. It’s too late. Can anyone survive?’

Director Andrew Davis’s 1983 horror thriller film Campsite Massacre [The Final Terror] is a slickly made, if tacky and derivative teen pic, in which a madman is stalking the Redwood National Park in California.

It stars John Friedrich, Adrian Zmed, Daryl Hannah, and Rachel Ward, along with Joe Pantoliano, Ernest Harden Jr, Lewis Smith, Akosua Busia, Mark Metcalf, Cindy Harrell and Irene Sanders.

The usual stuff starts with four rangers and their girls trekking in the park, which leads to heavy petting in the park, which leads to murder as the group members start getting killed one by one by a cunning slasher stalker killer in the woods.

Writers: Jon George (story and screenplay), Neill D Hicks (story and screenplay), and Ronald Shusett (screenplay), the creator of Alien.

Ronald Shusett was born on June 28, 1935. In 1974 he met Dan O’ Bannon, with whom he wrote Alien and Total Recall. Shusett also wrote for other films, mostly of the horror genre.

The highly professional action expert Andrew Davis went on to make the 1996 Keanu Reeves conspiracy thriller film Chain Reaction, filmed in the freezing winter of 1995-96 in Chicago, the hometown of director Davis, where he also made Code of Silence (1985), Above the Law (1988), The Package (1989) and The Fugitive (1993), his most notable film.

Davis made his directorial debut in 1978 with the independent musical Stony Island, followed by the 1983 thriller Campsite Massacre. His other directorial credits include Collateral Damage (2002) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; A Perfect Murder (1998) starring Michael Douglas: Chain Reaction (1996) starring Keanu Reeves: Steal Big Steal Little (1995) starring Andy Garcia; Holes (2011) starring Shia Labeouf; and The Guardian (2006) with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,786

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