1981. The Reagan era begins. Kids line up at arcades to plunk quarters into Donkey Kong machines. 750 million tuned in to watch Prince Charles and Diana tie the knot. Olivia Newton-John gets physical on something called MTV. And in Crystal Falls, New Hampshire, teenagers are getting hacked to pieces by a hedge shear-wielding lunatic at Camp Mattapan. Pamela was excited to return to camp and reunite with her old friends for some good ole Mattapan-mania. But swimming, kickball, archery, and the rest of the camp classics aren’t the only activities scheduled – this summer, BLOODY MURDER has been added to the itinerary!
As the hacked-up bodies of Pamela’s friends pile up, suspicions arise that this might be the work of camp legend Three-Fingered Willy, a former handyman who went crazy and fled to the woods after losing two fingers in an accident. But surely that can’t be. Three-Fingered Willy is just a campfire tale… isn’t he? But Pamela knows the truth. Three-Fingered Willy is real. She and her friends were there the night of his “accident.” Not only were they there, they were responsible. Now, after all these years, it seems Willy is back for his revenge.
This was a spectacular slasher throwback with a lot to like about it. One of the better features here is the wholly fantastic setup, which effectively brings everything from the summer camp slasher craze that the genre popularized from that period. Getting an in-depth look at the different staff and counselors at the site, discussing their interests in being there, the different relationships that develop throughout the summer, and the many shenanigans that play out, which all point to the kind of throwback style it’s attempting. The group is a bunch of fun to be around, with how it portrays the gangs’ activities and the personalities that are featured, where we see the girls as horny, boy-crazy types, and the guys are sex-driven pranksters hoping to score with as many girls as they can. Even though outliers are on both sides, that we get enough to like each one here makes for a solid starting point.
The other impressive part of this one is the slashing antics that take place while in the woods surrounding the camp. The traditional slasher setup about how he became dismembered and a background explanation about how that truly happened, which gets explored in greater detail over the book, where each of the group members starts to reveal the incident that sparked the source of the killer’s rampage. That all gives this enough motivation to go for the stalking and slashing, offering a slew of strong and somewhat straightforward sequences of the killer sculking around the woods of the camp, picking off stragglers and counselors in the middle of being unaware of what’s going on. It all creates a fun atmosphere that goes a long way to help enhance that experience of the period created by the character setups and interactions in the beginning, to be an immensely fun slasher story.
4.5/5
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