Forest Of Fear (1980)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: What if Romero wrote and directed Reefer Madness.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• All right, my copy of this is going by one of its many aka’s – Bloodeaters. That’s kooky.

• I’m not at all being sarcastic when I say that I love it when remastered 1080p Blu Rays show the beat up film and dirty camera lenses in HD.

• Christ, the very first scene is padding, we had to see this car drive down the entire road without opening credits for an excuse.

• Two flanneled and mustachioed gents grab their rifles and head into the woods for some hunting I guess.

• A woman in just her panties is taking a sponge bath over a bucket in the woods. All righty.

• This one flanneled gent looks exactly like Anthony Zerbe, the Phantom of the Park himself!
  

• Three other alternate titles are Toxic Zombies, Butchers of the Damned, and The Dromax Derangement. All of which kick the ass of Bloodeaters and Forest of Fear.

• Are these guys going to accidentally run into this bathing beauty, or are they hunting her?

• Holy shit, they’re Federal Officers and they blow the woman away after she runs from them.

• In a cool FX shot, the second agent hits her in the throat and it looks like her vocal chords are falling out of the wound.
  
  

  
  

• If you’re gonna rip off the theme to Jaws – change the key or at least the tempo Leopold.

• Two more flanneled men show up and strangle and stab the feds. Hopefully someone will tell us what is going on soon.

• Hippie gypsy weed farmers are behind this? Fuck, I thought there’d be a formidable foe in this shit-fest.

• Are these two suits Feds or VP’s?

• Remember those 1980 laws on pot? Don’t try to, just enjoy the current ones.

• There is something just so intrinsically gross and off-putting as a raw chicken carcass.

• We are introduced to the most vile redneck couple since Deliverance here.

• That whole scene with that redneck couple was a cinematic Mapplethorpe photo. Truly disturbing yet fascinating. You walk away from it saying, “Boy, he really got that bullwhip all the way up there didn’t he?”

• I love how cheap movies use stills of nature instead of actual film of it for transitions.

• A music stinger while Cole reads a piece of paper. Ok, kinda scary I guess sorta.

• Gross crop-dusting redneck flies over the harvesting hippies and douses them real good with the scary sounding pesticide Dromax.

• It’s worth the price of admission to watch these actors puke stage blood while covered in Johnson & Johnson baby powder. Which most likely gave everyone my age cancer if you read the reports. Just rantin’ here folks.

• Whether it knows it or not, this movie is just a gross out.

• Looks like stud pilot redneck got a face full of that stuff too.

• Did we just see a boring couple arguing or a sexual assault starring James Taylor and Carly Simon?

• Redneck creep pilot wakes up with black under his eyes clearly displaying that he is now a monster, not Bucky Dent in 1978. Deep to left!
  

• This actor actually looks better with the zombie makeup this shit film could afford.

• The hippie chowing down on raw meat is notably a nice homage to Romero – but a spiteful joke on hippie nutrition. See, they go vegan in life, but if they become zombies they eat human meat. Nothing? Alright.
  

• The “leader” of these hippies could take a course or two on motivational speech.

• I honestly have no idea what the B plot is with Cole, his wife, and his little brother was it? Ah, who cares.

• Hippies eating hippies – ya hate to see it.

• These zombies are all limping, so ya know – zombies.

• Shelly licking the leader’s blood off of the rock in the stream was a decent set piece. Bravo.

• I guess this displaced 70’s family is just here to be killed.

• This dad is up for father of the year when talking of his son, “And Jimmy, well, even if he’s retarded he’s gotta learn to get along in this world.”
  
  

  
  

• These piano riffs in the soundtrack sound so god damn familiar.

• I guess we’re going with a George and Lemmy thing here with Amy & Jimmy.

• This guy is the worst fucking BBQ’er ever.

• Dad Jerry fucks right off doesn’t he?

• Dad Jerry also gets Skywalker’d/Lannister’d. A subtle theme I’m finding in a couple of reviews this year.

• The wife stabs a zombie hippie in the eye and he screams like Bruce Dickinson. So these zombies might not be full-fledged ones if they still feel pain.
  

• Why do I give a shit what the rules are?

• C’mon lady, even Marilyn Burns made it into the back of the pick-up truck. Or should have I said Sally Hardesty instead. Like anyone gets this joke. -sigh-

• This is the worst fucking good Samaritan that has ever existed.

• The filler scenes in this movie have filler scenes. We don’t need to see everything it takes to put a truck in reverse.

• Dumb-ass samaritan gets slashed, and even dumber-ass wife hits every button in the truck except the ignition to start it up only to get her throat eaten out.

• Who doesn’t love a secretary that sneaks in bites of a Manwich in a between typing duties I ask of you.

• Amy and her retard brother are back to remind us of movie #4 in this moronically layered toilet stain.

• I forgot about Cole and his wife camping in what I hope are the same woods.

• Cole camps in the woods, fucks his wife in a tent, then wakes up in the morning to fish. Fuck 80’s slasher tropes, this is a man’s man.

• From Cole catching fish, then a cut to him cooking them, to a smash cut of Amy & Jimmy – I have a fucking hernia.

• Cole, his wife and now Amy & Jimmy are teamed up. I feel safer now, Avengers assemble.

• The creepy redneck couple who I also forgot about shows up dead just to show us what they’ve been up to.

• This is the second time those suit/Fed guys were inserted into the shot to show they were the ones on the phone. In a very odd way it works I admit.

• Old school racist jokes told to try to make a retard laugh, is a sentence that describes, elevates, and destroys all in two seconds.

• The director really likes driving POV shots.

• Now the soundtrack sounds like Tubular Bells

• Cole found a severed leg with some BBQ pork on it. Ewww.

• Why does Cole look like Henry Fonda with Frankenstein hair?

• I think zombie-ism has made these rednecks smarter.

• Gore shot of the brother after his head was caved in with a rock.

• This movie has a very strong Bill Rebane vibe to it. Go ahead and Google it, I know you have to.

• The suits are now in street clothes, so they should be easier to follow. They’re very concerned with the Dromax.

• When crossing a shallow little creek, of course the retard falls in. By the way, the movie said it first so I’m going with it.

• Good thing this final group found this guy’s cabin to stay in. And he’s not at all cynical either.

• The writer/director was really trying to get an Indianapolis speech like feel to this scene with the hermit guy explaining the history of the pesticide; and went down looking.

• Zombies who know how to make and ignite torches. OK.

• Tom gets a hold of the shotgun, takes out a zombie and says he’ll distract them while everyone else runs for it.

• Zombies that’ll eat destroyed zombies, not an alleyway often explored – but why not.

• Another movie I really want the soundtrack of.

• The zombies attack the cabin in the middle of the night, but Tom and his Ka-Tet walk down the road in broad daylight.

• The 2 suits are still driving along and bullshitting and they finally meet up with Clan Cole. What a shit-show Fellowship this turned out to be.

• I have just realized that the other suit named Phillips is none other than John Amplas. George Romero’s very own Martin.

• This is the worst kidnapping I’ve seen since the one in D.C. Cab.

• How many more times are we gonna see the zombie slapping the car window shot homage?

• Biting a zombie back in return – all right, that hasn’t been tried before.

• The wife sacrifices herself to save the retard. That’ll make his sister look like shit now.

• A blur of stabbings and shootings leaves us with the retard, Amy, and a shoulder-wounded Tom grieving over dead Polly.

• We went from dead Polly in the woods shot on film to an epilogue shot on video tape way too brightly.

• A very awkward and inappropriate kiss with his secretary, and Tom is on the open road searching for who knows what who knows where.

Final Thoughts:  A prime example of Grindhouse goodness. It’s not a good movie in any sense, but you can’t help but want to see this movie eating stale popcorn, drinking flat root beer, and having your feet stick to the floor.

Score: 3 Pesticide Covered Dirty Zombie Hippes (out of 10)

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