A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

It's loosely (and unofficially) based on the same novella. It's a pretty decent film and deserves more recognition than it has.

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That's interesting. My impression was that it WAS pretty much a part of the canon and that I was like the last person to see it.



Unrelated, I'm not sure I have the energy/interest in writing a review, but I watched For the Sake of Vicious a few days ago and the title is the best thing about it. It's trying to fold a home invasion premise in on itself, but I just found it confusing.

Just Before Dawn, 1981

Jonathan (Chris Lemmon) has just come into a large property in the backwoods of Oregon. Heading up the mountain with friends Danny (Ralph Seymour), Megan (Jamie Rose), Warren (Gregg Henry), and Constance (Deborah Benson), the group doesn't realize that the forest is the hunting ground for a ruthless killer. Ignoring a warning from the local ranger (George Kennedy), they find themselves isolated and struggling to survive.

I don't remember who recommended this one, but I very much enjoyed it. At first blush it might seem like it's part and parcel with the other slashers of the early 80s, but it does enough to distinguish itself to definitely make it worth checking out.

The killings are memorable without slipping into the kind of outlandishness that makes you more inclined to laugh at a movie then feel thrilled. The most effective aspect of the film is the way that the killer and the woods combine to create an atmosphere of constant hostility. The killer seems to be a part of the woods, slipping in and out of the trees suddenly and silently. There is a total absence of psychological analysis or reason behind the killings, so the killer becomes more like a malevolent extension of the woods.

The main characters themselves are not quite as memorable, but they aren't hard to root for. In an early scene they must decide how to handle an obviously drunk man who emerges from the woods and tells them that he's being chased by demons. Their decision to leave him there doesn't exactly endear them to you. (I totally get why they don't want to invite the man into their camper, but by the same token it's clearly not okay to leave someone in a bad state alone in the woods. They decide not to turn the camper around because they want to get to their campsite). Despite this early misstep, nothing they do is so horrible that you'd root for them to die. They obviously care about each other, and this adds tension to the danger they are in.

I wouldn't place this as a top tier horror film, but it's certainly solid enough and keeps you guessing until the very end.

I can see there is a more positive response to it now. Maybe due to the re-release Ash mentioned. When I saw it five or so years ago I don't believe there was more than five reviews up for it on RT, and a couple of them were pretty negative. Then, when it came to trying to find anything off of RT, most of what I found were reviews calling it either a bore or a mess. Both which confounded me as I didn't find it remotely boring, and the mess is part of its charm.


It does look like it is going over a little more favourably now, which I approve of. Like you, I thought I had heard the title before, and considering the actors involved, figured it must have been a shoo in as a classic. I was despaired to find it thought of as almost a complete irrelevancy.



Even when I reported back about it on Corrie, I remember almost no response regarding it....maybe Jinnistan, maybe Capt Terror, but overall a resounding silence.

I think that I may have been misled about its popularity not just because of the big names involved, but also because I've seen imagery/GIFs from it in multiple places/screencap games. That representation made me think it was someone everyone was familiar with, when maybe that wasn't the case.

I also don't really see describing it as a mess, to be honest. I mean, I sort of get where that comes from, but I think it's a pretty coherent story.

As a narrative I also think it works well, but there is also stuffed with a lot of weird and sometimes slightly goofy stuff, so there is a shaggy quality to it. Something I obviously would appreciate but that I think might put some off.

I also enjoyed this one quite a bit, though I think I enjoyed the characters a bit more than you did. I think this film explores the concept of the "final girl" more than some other films of its ilk do as, instead of her just getting lucky or the killer slipping up, the film creates a sorta vulnerability that she has to overcome to survive. Also, nice final shot!

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I haven't seen it since I was a teenager and therefore remember very little about it, which supports the claim that this is underseen.

I appreciated it too. I guess I'm reluctant to call something a mess when I feel as if its weirdness all flows to the same purpose. I thought even the goofy stuff all nicely fed into the sense of dread and an environment where anything could happen. Even the campy bluster of the Savalas character gives you that "oh no" feeling that someone really doesn't understand what they're up against.

I liked the characters--and like I said I didn't think any of them "deserved" what happened to them, even in the context of a horror movie. While the one character, Megan, fell a bit too much into the girly-girl trope, there was a refreshing absence of most other character stereotypes. Plus there were just some solid character beats. For example, while there are clearly not meant to be any gay undertones to it, I appreciated that we saw one character attempt to give another male character CPR. I feel like that isn't something you'd see in most films because they would be scared of creating a "gay" moment. A lot of the moments felt true to how a group of friends would relate to each other or try to help each other. The main horror fan service seemed to be in the skimpy outfits worn by the two female leads which, I'm sorry, were very stupid clothing choices for the woods and I didn't believe them for one minute.

And I thought that the film did a good job of putting its characters in positions where you genuinely ask "What would I do in that situation?" Obviously there were some poor choices in the beginning (like going up the mountain after two different warnings not to, and the number of times people wandered off on their own), but once things get going their behavior is pretty understandable.

I’ve raved about it and even wrote/directed a horror host show episode about it that, as far as I know, is in post-production and being edited.

I love the score, the unpredictable nature of its narrative, the friendship of Lee and Cushing being visible on screen (rather than played as enemies), and TELLY ****ING SAVALAS EATING ALL THE SCENERY IN THE WORLD.

It may have been me. I’ve brought it up a lot, especially in its clear superiority to Final Terror.

Im always happy for the fans to come out of the woodwork.

I like Final Terror but it is definitely superior to that

Yeah, I agree with this, particularly the bolded. I wouldn't go as high as you, I think I'd top out at 3/5 on this if I rated things, but I can certainly see room for someone to like it a little more than me. I definitely really enjoyed the way it ended.

I agree, one of the things I enjoyed about it most was the Final Girl in this one. In this case, it feels less like the pure or virginal one is the one who ends up being FG but the one who was the adult in the room. Not unlike, IMO, Ginny in F13 2. Though, while Ginny remains one of my top-5 FGs (maybe top-2), and I doubt this one will ever quite get there due to the film in general, I think the FG here is just rock-solid throughout and might be the most adult of the OG FGs, at least that I can think of. I mean, her name is Constance for god's sake.

It took me a day to process The Block Island Sound and what happened. But I did think it was good at the end of the day.

Chris Sheffield's performance which treads a fine line between flawed and irredeemable helps carry this one along with the Michaela McManus's more subtle turn as the voice of reason/newcomer to the island who ends up learning about the goings on. The McManus brothers (who are Michaela's brothers, btw) do a good job keeping up the tension and only letting us in on what's going on piece by piece without giving too much away. And this one sticks the landing!

Could have dealt with less grunting from the guy who plays the father, but it is what it is.

The Northman, 2022

Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) is the son of king Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke) and queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman). When Amleth's uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang) murders the king and tries to kill Amleth as well, Amleth flees for his life, swearing vengeance on his uncle. Years later, Amleth has fallen in with another clan, working as a berserker warrior. When his desire for vengeance is reignited, he disguises himself as a slave and, alongside fellow captive Olga (Anna Taylor-Joy), sets out to find and kill his uncle.

My expectations for this film were really high, especially after how much I enjoyed The Lighthouse. While it was solid enough, I didn't like it as much as I hoped and felt as if the film missed several opportunities for a more interesting and unique take on the vengeance plot.

The positives are exactly everything you expect from an Eggers film. It looks great, and there are some really thrilling sequences. The entire movie is a mix of "reality" and overtly magical/supernatural occurrences, often to strong effect. The performances are also solid. Skarsgard is good as a man who has tied himself to a destiny of revenge, no matter the cost. Taylor-Joy is really captivating as a woman who knows her own power and chooses to throw her lot in with Amleth. A range of supporting performances are good and a absolute feast of "Oh, hey! It's _______!". Bjork pops up as a blind seer, Willem Dafoe is the king's jester. Ralph Ineson appears in what basically amounts to a cameo.

The plot developments are all pretty easy to follow, but therein lies the problem with the film.

What happens in The Northman is not just a straightforward story of revenge. Of course it isn't. But the movie introduces several delightful turns and complications, only to shy away from them in favor of something more simple, something that is easier to fit into a narrative. And it's frustrating because so many moments of interesting nuance are introduced, only to be bulldozed over by a more conventional narrative. This lends the movie a degree of predictability and a stark awareness of all the alternate turns that could have been taken. At several points, characters are shown to be complex, only to be taken too far until they lose their complexity.

An enjoyable film, but one that frustrates with what feels like oodles of untapped potential.

Yeah, I just gave The Northman the same rating as Just Before Dawn. It is what it is.

Have you read any of the Sagas? That tends to impact whether or not someone takes issue with the narrative.

Your rating for both match mine, so I hereby declare your opinions as Correct.

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