MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE (1989)

As soon as I saw Cameron's Mitchell's name in the cast list, I knew this movie would stink. If that guy ever did a good film, I've yet to see it. And yet, he's the best thing MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE has to offer.

Made at the tail end of the slasher-movie craze, this Friday the 13th retread is about a newly-opened campground terrorized by a serial killer—in this case, a feral teen-ager with gag teeth, a New York Dolls wig, and a Party Express caveman suit. Seems the kid was lost in the woods years ago during a botched ransom drop and doesn't want obnoxious campers despoiling his home. Can't say I blame him.

The basic tenets of a slasher flick are here: remote location; lousy acting; shallow, obnoxious characters; killings that eschew feasibility; an authority figure (a park ranger named George) who wants the murders kept quiet; the idealist (David, the owner's son) who defies him; a main character with a link to the killer; a tie-in with a holiday (in this case, Memorial Day); and plenty of room for a sequel. What it lacks are the scares and suspense of the genre's better films. We learn the killer's motives and identity way too soon, and the killings are light on the gore. There's also no nudity unless you count the wet T-shirt dance that a shapely lass performs in the rain. Is it really a slasher film without gratuitous nudity and gore?

Some say this film is “so bad, it's good.” I disagree; it's just bad.

Item: The movie's tagline reads, “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the tent….”

Item: Early in the film, George pulls a dead dog up from deep in the camp's well. There are two ropes tied around the animal. It's never explained how they came to be tied to the dog's submerged carcass.

Item: After George spends the first fifteen minutes of the film insulting and berating David, he tells the kid, “It's nothing personal.”

Item: William Smith appears as a retired Brigadier General who is camping in a soundproofed Winnebago. He never leaves the mobile home, which makes me wonder what he's doing in the woods to begin with. The character also has no bearing on the storyline, which makes me think someone involved with the film owed Smith a favor.

Item: The overly-dramatic score attempts (unsuccessfully) to elicit tension the film itself lacks.