Memorial Valley Massacre (1989)

Boring

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

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 young 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 15 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.

I think the makers of "Memorial Valley Massacre" may have been trying to capture the heyday of the slasher film even as the genre was on its last legs. Squeaky-voiced fat kid? Check! Slutty Girl? Check! Cameron Mitchell? Check! I'm just still not sure if they meant it to be a comedy or not.Plotwise, we've got people at a campground and some murders. But there IS a discussion about torrential rain that won't let up, even when it's obviously bone dry. It also becomes Memorial Day at 5am too. That reminded me of Slaughter High, where April Fool's day ends at noon. MVM has a decent body count but no real gore (at least in the version I have). And it seems to go on forever, even with a mere 90-minute runtime. Absolutely awful.

**SPOILERS** The movie "Memorial Valley Massacre" tries to be different from your average run of the mill killer on the loose films and in a way it succeeded it what it set out to do.The villain in the film a clean shaven cave boy,John Caso, does kill more then half the cast in the movie by the time its over but at the same time you can't hold it against him for what he does. The cave boy we later find out was abandoned by his father and never had a normal childhood. This instilled a deep resentment in the boy for the human race whom he held, together with his dad, responsible for the predicament that he finds himself in: Living in a cave and living off the scraps of tourists who vacation in the valley.All this killing and destruction would not have happened if it wasn't for real-estate tycoon Allen Sangster, Cameron Mitchell, deciding to build a campground in the valley that the cave boy dwelled in. With dozens of campers in the area the cave boy just went wild, in his hatred for civilized man, going on a rampage killing some dozen of them by the time the movie was over. We have to understand the cave boys frame of mind in what he did. Feeling that the campers represented his father the cave boy took it out on them for what his dad did to him by leaving him out in the woods to fend for himself at an early age.Besides the interesting and deep psychological aspects, father and son relationship,of the film the rest of the movie was just too hard to take seriously even if you tried. The cave boy not only survived in the wild for some 17 years he also somehow learned how to drive heavy earth moving equipment, like bulldozers, and how to start fires. Not by rubbing two rocks or sticks together but by releasing gas from a gas-tank and then having the unsuspecting victim light a match blowing himself, and anyone within 50 feet of him, to pieces.The cave boy at first has the local park ranger George Webster, John Kerry, feel that it's a killer bear that's doing all the killing in and around the "Memorial Valley" campground. Together with his assistant Allen Sangster's son David, Mark Mears, Webster sets out to track down the killer bear before he does any more damage. Later when two of the campers bikers Eddie & Leon, Eddie D. & Don S.Fambeau, helping in tracking down the bear instead find the cave boy's home, with scores of human body parts and bones in it, thing really start to get unraveled. The cave boy feeling he's the victim of a home invasion loses it. Mad at what Eddie and Leon did, in stealing his prized skull, the cave boy comes out in the open killing everyone, including Eddie & Leon, that he comes in contact with.The movie ends on a high note, of sorts, with the cave boy finally finding his old man who in fact, instead of abandoning him, was searching for the confused young man all these years. ****SPOILER ALERT**** The heart-breaking ending has the cave boy, in his efforts to keep people from finding his secret lair, unwittingly do in his old man. All this happens when father and son were about to reunite, after some 17 years, and forget about the past.

"Memorial Valley Massacre" is a more than capable slasher when it gets going.**SPOILERS**Arriving at the Memorial Valley Park, head Ranger George Webster, (John Kerry) informs David Sangster, (Mark Mears) that the park isn't ready to open but is allowed to do so anyway. As the crowd pours in, including friends Tom, (Zig Roberts) Emily, (Dusty Woods) and Chuck, (Michael Spenard) bikers Eddie, (Eddie D) Leon, (Dan S. Fambeau) Morie, (Charles Douglass) Flo, (Christina Sullivan) Rita, (B.B. Selco) and Sara, (Lyvingston Holmes) as well as local girl Cheryl, (Lesa Lee) all decide to stay with them and rough it in the wilderness. As night falls, one member of the group is found dead in the forest, and local bear reports force them to put the blame on a bear. Forming a search party with the others, they all go out to find it, but are soon separated and disappear one-by-one. Realizing that a mysterious killer has been responsible all along, they all launch a stand against them to get out of the park alive.The Good News: This was quite a nice surprise. One of the best parts of the film is the simply spectacular last half-hour of the film. This is where the killer goes crazy and begins offing the members like crazy. Except for a couple, the film's over-a-dozen kills all come in this section of the film, and there are some quite good ones as well. Several are crushed under a flipped-over truck, another is set on fire when they stand in a pool of spilt gasoline, impaled in the stomach with a spear, another falls into a trap with spikes lining the bottom, an ax in the chest and much more. This is such a fast paced series of scenes that it leads into the next one very quickly, hardly leaving the previous one in question before it's on to the next one. That's the way to handle a slasher film, where the slashing is quite excellent and it gets a lot of time. It's not necessarily suspenseful, but there's enough to warm over any genre fan as this end section is pretty loaded with such things. There's even some nice chasing going on, where it gets some more excitement into the film. The chase through the forest to catch the rider on the scooter is a prime example, where the film keeps on delivering great action without it being a killing. The assault on the campground at the end works for the same way, and it is also a great action scene. There's plenty of innovative ideas brought into play, and the non-stop action of it really excites. The last really good part is that, even though the middle section isn't all that suspenseful, action-packed or even showing of normal slasher elements, this one doesn't really become boring. Nothing happens, but it stays watchable throughout and doesn't slip into moments of boredom or sleepiness. That's a great factor for the film, and it adds with the others into a nice slasher.The Bad News: This isn't all that bad and has a few problems. The most obvious is the complete and utter nonthreatening killer. The women in the film are bigger than the killer, and that in itself should be a clear indication of how large he is. The fact that he wears a bunch of animal skins and looks like a caveman doesn't help with intimidation either. Even worse is the fact that the movie decides to reveal the identity of it early in the beginning of the film, as this one really could've been driven in the middle section by making it a real mystery about who was responsible without ruining anything else in the film. They still could've played up the jungle-man version, but it would've had the middle section all the more suspenseful if it plays off the unknown member in the campground aspect a little more. The last real flaw is that there's way too much time in between the killings. The first one occurs pretty early into the film, then they drop off until the end segment, where it goes completely killing crazy. That leaves the middle section pretty slow-going, and for the hardcore slash fans, the middle is going to be a little slow. The low-budget feel could be a problem, but it isn't pronounced like the others, and not as detrimental either.The Final Verdict: A completely cheesy and quite clichéd affair, this is a really fun and enjoyable slasher when it gets down to it. Really recommended to those who enjoy the style of campground slasher or the genre in general, while those who aren't huge genre fans will find this one to be quite bad and not worth it.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene