I am torn on this movie but mostly leaning towards the side of loving it. The problem is the main reasons I love it are completely subjective, so I feel that I must still give an accurate technical rating of the movie.
I love this movie mainly because I remember seeing it many many times as a kid. In fact there was a time when my family and I would visit my grandma's house for a weekend at least once or twice a month and I would always sleep on the couch out in the main room, which meant I could watch tv until late. And for about a year, it seemed that every time we went, this movie was on cable as the late night movie, so I saw it probably about 15 times. I was young and so I wasn't really familiar with a lot of similar horror b films. At the time I remember thinking this was actually a serious scary film and not a campy b horror.
Years later now, I remembered the movie and wanted to see if I could find a copy of it. So I researched and got one and rewatched it. At first I thought this had to be a different film. The campiness of some of the park rangers reminded me of Wes Craven's "I Spit On Your Grave". But then quickly came in some of the really bad special effects and I knew this was the film I remembered.
So what does the film have going for it? Well it is definitely in the realm of those so bad its funny films. Although the movie does actually appear to attempt some humor which fails miserably. I think for me the best parts are the special effects, because they are so over the top and fake, yet also somewhat terrifying. I would say that all in all, the film feels like a homage to early zombie films both in its plot and special effects. Its definitely a film that anyone can sit down and enjoy for an evening if they just want something laugh at and be entertained by for an hour or two.
I love this movie mainly because I remember seeing it many many times as a kid. In fact there was a time when my family and I would visit my grandma's house for a weekend at least once or twice a month and I would always sleep on the couch out in the main room, which meant I could watch tv until late. And for about a year, it seemed that every time we went, this movie was on cable as the late night movie, so I saw it probably about 15 times. I was young and so I wasn't really familiar with a lot of similar horror b films. At the time I remember thinking this was actually a serious scary film and not a campy b horror.
Years later now, I remembered the movie and wanted to see if I could find a copy of it. So I researched and got one and rewatched it. At first I thought this had to be a different film. The campiness of some of the park rangers reminded me of Wes Craven's "I Spit On Your Grave". But then quickly came in some of the really bad special effects and I knew this was the film I remembered.
So what does the film have going for it? Well it is definitely in the realm of those so bad its funny films. Although the movie does actually appear to attempt some humor which fails miserably. I think for me the best parts are the special effects, because they are so over the top and fake, yet also somewhat terrifying. I would say that all in all, the film feels like a homage to early zombie films both in its plot and special effects. Its definitely a film that anyone can sit down and enjoy for an evening if they just want something laugh at and be entertained by for an hour or two.