Rating: ***
Starring: Paul Le Mat, Catherine Hicks, Stephen McHattie
At times, simplicity in a plot can go a long way if executed rather unconventionally.
From a glance, Death Valley (1982) doesn't sound like your typical slasher flick as it doesn't deal with busloads of teenagers driving to their doom. Instead we have Billy, a young boy from a divorced family, being sent off to a holiday with his mum Sally and her childhood bud-turned-boyfriend Mike, which the kid isn't too excited about as he would rather spend some time with his beloved dad.
Determined to give the boy a good time, Sally and Mike decided to drive through the near-barren Arizona desert to visit a Western themed novelty town, who Billy is a fan of. Amidst their trip, they stop at the titular Death Valley to take a break, wherein the boy stumbles upon a seemingly empty mobile home and picks up a peculiar looking frog necklace. Unknown to him, however, the necklace belongs to a serial killer who just recently murdered the van's occupants and, after being made aware of this little slip-up, is now determined on snuffing the life out of the tyke and too those who got in the way.
For a good slice of the run, Death Valley (1982) focuses on the dynamics between lil' Billy and the trying Mike as they awkwardly attempt to either trust the other or be trusted. Sometimes these building moments can get a bit cheesy and half-hearted, quite not sure if it is intentional or the acting was a just tad off, but it does call for some developments rarely tackled by other slasher flicks of its decade, showing both boys as flawed yet understandable in the simplest manner.
This transitions quite nicely to the slasher portions of the movie, pretty much starting early with Billy stumbling upon a murder site and going on close calls with one intense scene involving the killer spotting the bespectacled Billy alone inside one of the novelty town's attractions and begin shooting live rounds at his young target, who in turn not knowing it was for real. Things subdue once a while only for the ball to get rolling again no soon after with Mike and Sally going on a date and leaving little Billy alone at a motel with a hired sitter. And we all know how sitters end in a film like this.
What soon leads is a third act filled with fairly entertaining stalk-and-hunt sequences as the kid finds himself prowled upon by a loonie who spouts obscurities and loves to tap dance on rooftops. As silly as some of these scenes are, they are equally fun and tense as the killer has no problem showing just how unhinged he is, destroying anything and anyone to intimidate his targets and even packing a nice but slightly foreseeable twist regarding him.
Overall, as a slasher, Death Valley (1982) tries to play a different game by broadening its casts as people rather than just characters. Though this seems only applied to the main leads, it still works quite an advantage for the movie as not only we learned to feel for the leading family, but it also brought something new to the table, at least for its time when nearly all slasher victims are dumb horny teenagers. In turn, the film barely boasts a high bodycount and some of the kills were on the tame side, but if the final product is a steady flow from point A to point B, with bloody good stalkings and killings to boot, I'm okay with it!
With all of this, I say Death Valley (1982) is a worthwhile watch for slasher fans and for willing horror junkies who wouldn't mind some cheesy family drama over their dead teenagers. Tame as it may be, it at least has character!
Bodycount:
1 male gets a throat cut with a knife
1 male found with throat cut
1 female slaughtered offcamera with a knife
1 male hacked with a pickaxe
1 female gets her throat cut with a knife
1 male shot dead
1 male hit by a car, lands and impaled on an agave plant
Total: 7
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