John Friedrich | Through the Shattered Lens

“Marco!?”

“Melanie!?”

“Margaret!?”

“Dennis!?”

“Eggar!?”

“Windy!?”

If you watch the 1983’s The Final Terror, be prepared to frequently hear the names of the film’s characters. For a slasher film about a bunch of campers wandering through the forest, The Final Terror has a surprisingly large cast and they all spend a good deal of time walking around and yelling out each other’s names. Somehow, people keep getting lost even though they know that there’s a killer out there and they all really should be sticking together.

Interestingly enough, for a slasher film, there aren’t that many deaths. The majority of the cast survives. Even the most obnoxious of the campers, the one who seems like an obvious victim, manages to make it through to the finale. I guess we should be happy that most of them survived and this was apparently their final terror. The majority of the campers were teenagers and if you’re having your surviving your final terror when you’re not even old enough to drink yet …. well, consider yourself lucky.

The Final Terror is set up like an entry in the Friday the 13th franchise but it’s never anywhere close to being as sleazy as those films. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on what you, as a viewer, want in terms of a wilderness slasher film. If you want lots of sex, blood, and people making stupid decisions, The Final Terror will probably bore you to death, despite the fact that it includes all three. If you want a relatively realistic film about being lost in the wilderness while being stalked by an unseen killer, you’ll probably appreciate The Final Terror. This film was directed Andrew Davis, who went on to direct several big budget Hollywood action films. Before he became an action director, though, he worked as an assistant to cinematographer Haskell Wexler on the semi-documentary Medium Cool. Davis brings that realistic style to The Final Terror. Even though the film does feature some familiar faces, it’s easy to believe that you’re just watching a bunch of campers trying to survive for the weekend.

As for the cast, Rachel Ward plays one of the leaders of the campers. Joe Pantoliano makes an early appearance as the creepy Eggar. Daryl Hannah plays Windy. Mark Metcalf plays another camper named Mike. The entire ensemble actually does a pretty good job. As I said, you really do believe that the majority of the cast are delinquent teenagers who have been sent on a camping trip. When they work together to keep someone from bleeding to death, it almost feels like an educational film. “Because the campers worked together,” you can imagine a narrator saying, “they might survive The Final Terror.”

The Final Terror is not bad, though I have to admit that I like my 80s slashers to be a little bit more sordid. But for what it is — an attempt to take a realistic approach to a genre that is regularly held in dismissive disdain — The Final Terror works surprisingly well. As captured by Andrew Davis, the wilderness is both beautiful and terrifying. You’ll never catch me camping!

So, I just finished watching Thank God, It’s Friday, a movie from 1978. It’s an episodic comedy, one that follows a group of genuinely unlikable characters as they all gather in one genuinely unlikable location and proceed to have some fairly generic experiences.

For example, there’s the married couple and the husband needs to loosen up. There’s the DJ who is going to lose his job if he can’t deliver the big stars that he’s promised. There’s the short, violent guy who is upset because he’s been set up on a date with a tall woman. There’s the dental hygienist who comes across like she’s desperately trying to convince everyone that she’s eccentric when she’s really just boring. (We all know the type.) There’s the teenager girls who try to sneak into the club, despite being underage. There’s the two dorky guys who are looking for love. There’s the two dorky girls who are looking for love.

In fact, everyone in the movie is looking for love! Except for Jeff Goldblum! He just wants to get laid. He manages the club where everyone has gathered on this particular Friday. He’s a womanizer. We can tell because he wears a red jacket and his shirt is half-buttoned. Goldblum decides that he wants to break up the married couple. Boo! Hiss! But wait a minute — neither the husband nor the wife are likable or interesting. Go, Jeff, go! BREAK UP THAT BORINGASS MARRIAGE!

Oh! And Nicole (Donna Summer) is wandering around the club too. She wants a chance to perform but the DJ refuses to let her. So, eventually, she just grabs a microphone and she starts to sing. Luckily, the song she sings is Last Dance and, by singing it, she gives everyone an excuse to go home. If you’ve ever been to a karaoke night, you know that, as soon as a drunk sings Last Dance, it’s time to pay the bill and get the Hell out of there.

Last Dance was apparently written specifically for Thank God, It’s Friday. Or maybe Thank God, It’s Friday was written specifically for Last Dance, who knows? What we do know is that Last Dance won the Oscar for Best Original Song. That’s right — Thank God, It’s Friday is an Oscar winner and therefore, will always be enshrined with fellow Oscar winners like Crash, Titanic, and SPECTRE.

(Which songs did Thank God, It’s Friday beat? It defeated a song from Grease, which is a good thing because Grease is even more annoying than Thank God, It’s Friday. That’s right, I said it. And you know it’s true.)

Anyway, Thank God, It’s Friday is a really bad movie, one that is full of bad writing, bad jokes, bad performances, and indifferent direction. It’s tempting to say that the music was really good but actually, we don’t hear much of the music. The movie is often more concerned about what’s happening in the club’s parking lot than in what is happening (and being heard) on the inside. We may not hear much music but we do get to see some pretty icky racial stereotyping and who would guess that a movie about disco would be so homophobic?

(We don’t see any cocaine, though I’m sure you could probably hear the key grip and the gaffer snorting a line off-camera if you listened closely enough. A lot of the cast looked pretty wired.)

ANYWAY — here’s the important thing about Thank God, It’s Friday. Occasionally, I’ll watch a movie like Dazed and Confused or Boogie Nights or Saturday Night Fever and I’ll get jealous because I know that I’ll never get a chance to experience the 70s first hand. Fortunately, something like Thank God, It’s Friday will always be around to reassure me, “No, Lisa. The 70s sucked!”

Thank God, it’s Friday?

No, thank God the movie’s over.