Blood Stalkers (1976)

People are voting emotionally.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Two couples -- rugged, traumatized Vietnam war veteran Mike (an excellent performance by Jerry Albert), his sweet wife Kim (nicely played by the lovely Toni Crabtree), jolly goofball Daniel (a solid and likable portrayal by Ken Miller), and Daniel's sassy spouse Jeri (a delightfully spunky Cisse Cameron) -- vacationing in a remote cabin in the Florida Everglades run afoul of vicious local redneck psycho poachers. Writer/director Robert W. Morgan relates the gripping story at a steady pace, develops a considerable amount of suspense (a sequence with Mike running through the woods trying to get back to his friends is an absolute tour-de-force of nerve-wracking tension that makes inspired use of strenuous slow motion and snappy crosscutting with a gospel tune acting as ironic counterpoint to the harrowing on-screen action), and really piles on the brutal graphic carnage with a rousing last reel slaughter spree. Moreover, Morgan smartly explores such provocative themes as heroism, cowardice, revenge, and man's indifference and inhumanity to his fellow man. The main characters are well-drawn and engaging. Herb Goldstein as a creepy old gas station proprietor, John R. Meyer as the coarse, mean Lester, David Faris Legge as the ornery Pip, and Morgan as the bald, knife-wielding Jarvis are all genuinely menacing as the nasty hillbilly villains. The lush sylvan location projects a profoundly unsettling sense of dread, isolation, and vulnerability. Irv Rudley's cinematography is rather plain, but overall effective. Stan Webb's shivery score further enhances the eerie atmosphere. Recommended to fans of regional low-budget fright fare.

The other reviews here give a pretty accurate view of the story and how it plays out so won't rehash any of it here. In presenting a review I would only add the filmmakers appeared to have a distinct vision of the film they wanted to make. Once a hardcore horror film viewer I've sat thru a lot of low budget dreck, so while some horror fans may describe Blood Stalkers as a bad and poorly made film, I would strongly disagree. Certainly not on par with say Sam Raimi's early work (The Evil Dead trilogy), it is an entertaining and sometimes scary film. The actors are not the buff and pretty people found in today's slasher films and Chainsaw remakes, but instead ordinary looking middle aged folk. And within the context of a low budget horror story they give rather good performances. The film has a terrificly crude visual style, and makes nice use of it's locations. Not as polished as much of today's low budget fare but worth seeing if you can find it.

This is a pretty obscure, dumb horror movie set in the 1970s Everglades. It is really stupid and lame for the first half, then it actually starts to get good for the last half. There is a scene with the hero running to save his friends interspersed with shots of a church group singing, I don't know. It is mesmerizing. I was impressed with the night time scenes, because it actually looked like night, unlike most low budget horror films where it still looks like daytime. I feel like the director was really talented but was working with a miniscule budget and a tough schedule. There are a few scenes towards the end, the one mentioned above and also the end credits that are extremely cool. This movie could have been a genuine classic if it left its Scooby Doo conventions behind and went straight for the throat. I was surprised at how good this movie turned out to be. I couldn't take my eyes off of it, and I had to ask myself "why?"

This film is about a couple that decides to take a vacation to The Everglades along with another couple and the family dog. When they first get there, they are not welcomed by the neighboring gas attendant that warms them to stay away from the cabin in which they are to spend the night at for the week. After pestering with the old man, three hillbillys also do not take kindly to their arrival as they approach their car and threaten them to leave. After asking some of the local dummies that can't speak or just don't want to answer, they finaly find the cabin. After they settle in, strange things happen to the visitors including discovering crap on their car, the man thats the head of this trip thats an idiot shoots the family dog thinking it was a killer clawing at the door and a series of deaths later on in the end. Adding a church group did not make the story any better. Then at the end, the idiot that survives the whole ordeal goes around the town carrying a shot gun. Lame. thats what this movie is.