I think stilted acting and extreme hillbilly caricatures spoiled a movie that could have been a lot better.
I was soured early on by the scene where "tread lightly" was ignored at the peril of nature and equipment alike. But that was balanced by a scene where the father & son talk about only killing animals when necessary, which I suspect got more treatment in the original 1977 book.
There were a number of scenes where people seemed to have no clue about the carriage of sound in the woods. Whispering vs. yelling would have been a good idea early on. They didn't get serious enough, soon enough about their predicament, which lent an air of unrealism to the thing.
The film had some tense moments but it lacked smooth direction in too many places. Calling it a "gem," as others have, is really a stretch. I see it as a movie best watched while drunk. There was enough going on to be entertaining, but don't expect anything like the realism and pacing of "Deliverance" and a few other truly good survival movies.
One thing that stuck with me was the intro music. A stark guitar piece with a haunting "fog horn" background effect (hard to explain in words). Had the entire movie lived up to the promise of that song it would have been quite decent.
I was soured early on by the scene where "tread lightly" was ignored at the peril of nature and equipment alike. But that was balanced by a scene where the father & son talk about only killing animals when necessary, which I suspect got more treatment in the original 1977 book.
There were a number of scenes where people seemed to have no clue about the carriage of sound in the woods. Whispering vs. yelling would have been a good idea early on. They didn't get serious enough, soon enough about their predicament, which lent an air of unrealism to the thing.
The film had some tense moments but it lacked smooth direction in too many places. Calling it a "gem," as others have, is really a stretch. I see it as a movie best watched while drunk. There was enough going on to be entertaining, but don't expect anything like the realism and pacing of "Deliverance" and a few other truly good survival movies.
One thing that stuck with me was the intro music. A stark guitar piece with a haunting "fog horn" background effect (hard to explain in words). Had the entire movie lived up to the promise of that song it would have been quite decent.