1983
Starring Jo-Ann Robinson, Richard Hench, Roger Maycock, Frank McDonald, Carol Sue Flockhart, Barbara Magnusson and Kirk Alyn.
Ugg... This movie seemed somewhat promising when I randomly came across in on Netflix, but I was very disappointed. I did really like all the ladies outfits, but that is rarely enough to keep a movie interesting.
It begins with old archeology Professor Machen (Kirk Alyn) getting called out that he hasn't tagged any of the artifacts that he was supposed and the deadline is coming up a in few days. He lets his six students know that he can't go on their archeology trip to the ancient Indian burial ground, but he allows them go on their own. The Professor gives the kids a weird old map of that he bought off someone to guide them to the right area. The most weirdly enthusiastic of the bunch is DJ (Jo-Ann Robinson) who is carrying around two wooden sticks that she constantly hitting together for some reason. Ellen (Barbara Magnusson) calls it quickly by telling DJ that she's weird. They all pile in an old station wagon and are their way. We see tons of footage of them driving until their car starts to overheat. They stop at a gas station and an old Indian man warns them not to take any artifacts from the ancient Indian massacre site their headed to. They don't heed his warning and keep driving forever until they find the spot on the map that they're looking for. DJ begins to get visions of horrible things that will happen but she can't really decipher what they mean, so she just keeps clacking her sticks together.
They brought lots of gear for their camping trip but no one seemed to bring appropriate hiking attire. The ladies are wearing dress boots and shorts and carrying tote bags while the guys are just in tennis shoes. They wander around for awhile until they find the right spot to start digging. DJ warns them that they shouldn't be digging up any of this stuff. Randy (Richard Hench) finds a necklace while they're digging and puts it on. That night Randy and Ellen go to make out, but she's not into it so Randy, taken over by the spirit of Black Claw, violently rapes her. Ellen tries to run away but then she is killed and scalped by Randy/Black Claw. Randy goes back to the camp and everyone wants to know where Ellen is. They find her body and Randy says she must of fallen off a cliff. Randy/Black Claw continues to kill all of the other characters. Randy/Black Claw is then shot by Kershaw (Roger Maycock) killing Randy and releasing the spirit of Black Claw. Black Claw then inhabits DJ and she kills Kershaw. At the last minute Professor Machen comes to check on them and is killed by DJ.
It just isn't a very fun movie, even with the kill scenes. They couldn't figure out a good way to shoot at night so it goes back and forth between day shots shot to look like night and very dark shots really shot at night. This makes the timeline confusing to what day it is. All the build up to the kill scenes is dull and doesn't make a ton of sense. I didn't really care about any of the characters, so when they died it wasn't a big deal. Plus they were warned multiple times not to mess with this area, but they did it anyway and they all ended up dead.
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