Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 5, 2015, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The word Don’t could arguably be applied to the decision to watch this movie, but amidst the many imitative slasher flicks of the early ’80s, this one is so incoherent and ridiculous that there’s little surprise it has acquired a cult following in the ensuing decades. Those fans will be thrilled with Vinegar Syndrome’s new Blu-ray/DVD combo, which is packed with sufficient extras to make it a worthwhile purchase even for casual fans of the subgenre.
The moniker Don’t Go in the Woods may be grammatically incorrect (suggesting a warning against taking a leak where there might be poison ivy), but it appropriately heralds a movie that’s dramatically incorrect in a big way. Underwritten, overacted and amateurishly put together, this is prime evidence that back in 1982, practically anything that dramatized a mad killer’s rampage for over 80 minutes could make its way into theatrical release. Dressed like a caveman, screaming and ranting to a laughable degree as he terrorizes a pair of annoying couples and assorted anonymous supporting victims (including a completely random guy in a wheelchair), this particular Maniac, as he is billed, is accompanied by one of the decade’s most grating synthesized scores. And yet one of the film’s more entertaining elements is also musical: a demented little variation on “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” that plays over the end credits and was created, we’re told, as a joke by composer H. Kingsley Thurber before director James Bryan decided to actually use it.
Really, though, the best thing about Don’t Go in the Woods is the free production value provided by the eye-catching Utah mountain scenery where it was filmed. All the greenery, the too-bright-red blood and other hues are very pleasingly replicated in Vinegar Syndrome’s newly restored transfer; considering the movie was shot on short ends and expired stock, with occasional out-of-focus moments, light leaks, etc., the movie looks as good as it possibly could. Previously issued on a 2006 Code Red DVD in director-supervised fullscreen, the film is presented here in 1.85:1 widescreen with no noticeable compromising of the image, and the mono soundtracks are clear enough to make it very obvious that the whole movie was post-dubbed.
So who’da thunk a cheeseball flick like this would warrant three audio commentaries and a passel of other extras? The Vinegar Syndrome guys, that’s who, along with the Code Red team, from whose DVD some of the supplements are ported over. Among these are two of the commentaries, and you can probably skip the one on which Bryan speaks solo, since almost everything he discusses there is covered elsewhere among the bonus features. The second track teams Bryan with female lead Mary Gail Artz—now a successful casting director with credits including Frailty, House of Wax and The Nightmare Before Christmas, among many others!—plus a couple of superfans (apparently over dinner, given the audible clinking of silverware). There’s the expected amount of joking around, but also plenty of information and entertaining recollections of the production, the cast and the assorted low-budget obstacles Bryan had to overcome, from footage that got fogged and rendered unusable to prurient Utah attitudes that led him to eschew onscreen nudity.
Adding a fan perspective is a new commentary by “The Hysteria Continues!,” a.k.a. the Hysteria Lives! podcast gang consisting of The Slasher Movie Book author Justin Kerswell, Joseph Henson, Erik Threlfall and Nathan (no last name). To be sure, none of them have any illusions about the movie’s quality (well, with the exception of Nathan, who makes comparisons along the way to Suspiria and The Silence of the Lambs), but they do discuss it with a great deal of affection, pointing out the stuff that entertains them along with the many conventions (“Is there such a thing as a thin sheriff in any movie ever?”), inconsistencies and just plain odd stuff the film offers. As some of them are British, they also address Woods’ rather risible-in-retrospect designation as a “video nasty” in the UK.
The real eye-opener is a nearly hour-long documentary put together back in ’06 by Bryan himself, who tracked down about a dozen of his Woods collaborators for present-day interviews (on rough handheld video, which helps preserve the low-budget vibe). If you’ve ever watched a vintage cheapie like this and wondered what the heck happened to all the people involved, here’s your chance to find out, as the former actors and crew, whose subsequent jobs have ranged from cameraman for Oprah and Dr. Phil to private investigator to Vegas blackjack dealer, also share fun individual memories of the shoot and its aftermath. Amusingly, almost everyone involved points out that Peter Turner, the agent instrumental in putting the project together, won’t return their phone calls today; one of the most telling revelations has credited screenwriter Garth Eliassen recalling that after he did a rewrite of his script (then titled Sierra), he showed up on set to find Bryan handing out a new, handwritten draft of his own to the entire company!
Bryan certainly acts like he was the scripter in one of three talk show/TV news appearances he made (two with Maniac actor Tom Drury) to promote the movie, which are presented here. In that segment, the director claims Woods has “a little bit of Monty Python in it…you’ll die laughing,” and there’s no disputing the second part of that statement, even if the first is rather suspect. Still more background on the project is revealed in this section, like the fact that Bryan raised funds via a haunted-house attraction and that he originally had a different distributor (which goes unnamed). There’s also an extensive collection of behind-the-scenes photos and an ample gallery of promo art, plus a trailer whose voiceover has somewhat less than the desired threatening effect.
Fresh to Vinegar Syndrome’s package is a collection of videotaped filmmaker/cast interviews from a DVD signing party, conducted by Splinters the ventriloquist’s dummy—a joke that doesn’t quite sustain over the segment’s half-hour running time—and the screenplay (not Eliassen’s, sadly, but the dialogue continuity script). Is it all too much for a movie that, in the end, is little more than a footnote in the history of slasher cinema? High-minded genre connoisseurs might say so, but then, as Bryan himself acknowledges at the end of his documentary, “Not everyone appreciates bad.”
