Twin Giants a Gigglin' : Just Before Dawn (1981)

Just Before Dawn (1981)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: George Kennedy, Mike Kellin and Chris Lemmon

The scene starts with two hunters finding themselves an abandoned church in the woods to stumble into, where they're suddenly terrorized by an unseen hulk. One hunter got away, the other got something in between his legs that's long, hard...and razor sharp.

We then cut to a van full of campers on a hiking trip, being warned by not only the local sheriff that the woods aren't safe, but also the surviving hunter who is now babbling about demons prowling the ground. As any teenagers would in these films, they ignored all these doom-sayings and continue to drive deeper into the mountains, eventually hiking on foot when the trail becomes narrow. Camps are then set and the usual teen business begins (mainly loud music and a lot of making out), though they do run afoul with a family of hillbillies living nearby who are less than welcoming towards city-folks and proves that point by blowing up their some of their gear with a shotgun.


Defiantly, this didn't scare the teens away, so they still went on to stay in their camps, unaware that that our demons -a pair of hillbilly's mongoloids- finally decided to make their move and starts killing off anyone they can get their sausage fingers on. As the group thins down to the last two, a battle for survival starts...

Just Before Dawn (1981) is indeed an odd yet underrated gem, setting us up with expectations of a gory hacking spree courtesy of this film's admittedly messed-up opening murder, only for the plot to slow down and build itself more around its characters and the brooding tension. There are more peeps talking and freaks plainly stalking here, in turn, all of which done through a steady pacing that continues even once the film reaches it climax. Looking past this flawed momentum, though, the film do manages to create an effectively suspenseful and moody atmosphere, calling back to 70s hicksploitation titles featuring mountain men demoralizing outsiders, forcing the victims to take drastic measures to survive in vein of Deliverance (1972).

The movie's eerie, sullen and isolated mountain backdrop certainly help maintain the intensity of the later cat-and-mouse action, especially at night wherein certain scenes have the surviving few confronting the threat in the dark, forcing them to viciously lash out like cornered animals. The killers themselves are no joke neither; though they're dumb-looking, child-like and creates weird "whistle-giggle" noises, they're no less lethal in their murdering spree. Their origins weren't fully explained but the mountain family living within the woods hints a connection to them, along with ideas of incest and inbreeding being thrown in during a few conversations. Nevertheless, they're your basic towering boogeymen who just happen to be roaming the woods for some people to cut up just for the heck of it and, in that contextual notion, nothing could be scarier.

A real slow-burner, this one is, Just Before Dawn (1981) is often overlooked as another backwoods slasher romp, though one with decent atmosphere and some workable creep factor. Frankly, it's an alright film for avid slasher fans, even if it does take a while or so before much of the bloody action starts. Be patient with it and you may have yourself a rough gem here.

Bodycount:

1 male had his groin impaled with a saw-toothed machete
1 male pushed off a cliff and drowns in river
1 male pinned and impaled on the ground with a machete
1 female killed offscreen
1 male repeatedly shot on the back with a shotgun
1 male choked on a fist
Total: 6