Within the Woods (1978)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply Perfect

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The Plot.A group of friends spend a weekend at a remote cabin, and one of them accidentally desecrates an Indian burial ground. This causes him to turn into a zombie, and kill off his friends. They must band together to try and survive being massacred.Welllll...it's not really a cabin...it's a house. A big house.It's hard to review this film because the available prints are horrible! They look like they were pulled off a TV! The were definitely transferred of a video tape.So it's really dark and hard to know what's happening.BTW some people have said this is hard to find!!! well it's all over you tube.Is it good? Not really. It's rather dull. You can see some good Rami touches, but it is no way the caliber of Evil Dead.

Remarkable for a Super 8 short (and I've seen more than my share over the years), WITHIN THE WOODS proves that Sam Raimi had "The Fright Stuff" from the very beginning. Leading man Bruce Campbell, looking not unlike Clark Kent in a pair of glasses, demonstrates that he's already fully capable of carrying a film. Like THE RESURRECTION OF BRONCHO BILLY (co-written by John Carpenter), A TIME OUT FOR WAR (with Barry Atwater, who would go on to infamy as the vampire in THE NIGHTSTALKER), COMES A TIME (with Ally Sheedy), SOME FOLKS CALL IT A SLING BLADE (the impetus for the feature, with Billy Bob), and AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE (the French short that turned up on THE TWILIGHT ZONE), to rattle off but a few, WITHIN THE WOODS warrants a look. Raimi and Company manage to generate some genuine suspense and the makeup fx and the music and sound fx are all outstanding for a short (the totem pole was a nice touch and one can't help but smile when the normally scene-chewing Bruce Campbell gnaws off his own hand). Special thanks to the good folks at SubCin.com for the copy I saw; it was definitely worth seeing.

As an avid fan of The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi and, of course, Bruce Cambpell, it would be no surprise that i give this movie a 10 rating. But let me explain why: Elen Sandweiss and Bruce Campbell appear in this fantastic super-8 movie of a bunch of college kids in a house in the middle of the woods. Bruce's character isn't the chainsaw-toting Ash we all know and love, he is instead, quite simply: Bruce.Many scenes in this movie are carried through into The Evil Dead, such as the doorstep scene, where Elen frantically tries to open the door to escape from The Force (no, not the Star-Wars Force, the cast and crew of The Evil Dead referred to the evil in the woods as "The Force"). But even for a movie that cost only $1000-odd to make and took a weekend to film this shows outstanding professionalism on everyone's part. The ground-breaking camera-angles are apparent even in this early movie.The violence (which has become The Evil Dead's trademark) is in no short supply here. Despite the budget there's still lots of blood; screaming, wrist-chewing, knife-happy demons and of course, Indian burial grounds. Why not? All in all, definitely one to watch. It may be of poor quality but i still urge you to look for this and watch it. It will satisfy any horror/Campbell/Raimi/Evil Dead fan.

"Within the Woods" is largely known as the prequel to "The Evil Dead".This 30-minutes film was created to sell investors on the idea of "The Evil Dead".The film is extremely low-budget and the story is minimal.Still there is plenty of gore to satisfy fans of American horror.Bruce Cambell plays Bruce,who gets zombified.Ellen Sandweiss plays his girlfriend,Ellen.However she doesn't get raped by a tree in this film,though.The cinematography is grainy and the moving steady/shaky camera-a Raimi trademark-probably made it's debut here."Within the Woods" is rather tough to find,but if you get a chance watch it.Highly recommended.