Reviews

This episode really paints the usually nice and level headed Margaret in a pretty deceitful, underhanded and manipulating light. The episode overall isn't that bad, but the way Margaret is shown to be at the end just ruins the entire story for me because I don't feel her character would be that deceitful and manipulating towards Jim.

The plot revolves around Jim wanting to go hunting for a weekend with his friend and neighbor. Various instances are shown how everyone in the family suddenly and conveniently has reason for Jim to forgo his trip and stay home with them.

Jim believes they were all plotting against his going due to a family sitcom they all watched together the previous night where similar events happened to the sitcom family and Jim was determined not to fall for any of that ruse and continue to go on his hunting trip.

It appeared to me that Bud and Betty's situations were actually just unfortunate coincidences that happened and bad timing. Bud is diagnosed as really being sick by a doctor so he really wasn't faking it.

Betty appears to be genuinely confused at the end of the episode when Jim is apologizing to Margaret for thinking what he thought all along. After Jim walks away, Betty asks "What's he apologizing for?". So I believe she too was completely innocent.

It's then that we see Margaret give a sly, satisfied smile, and winks at the camera while saying "It's amazing the things one picks up on the TV", which is basically an outright admission to the audience that she actually WAS plotting and manipulating to keep Jim from going on his hunting trip all along and I found it unfunny and very out of character for her to do.

And I can't believe she would actually crash the car and damage the fence just to keep Jim from going away for a lousy weekend. The next morning she acts all innocent wondering how on earth she could have crashed the car like that right in the driveway.

But at the end we know, it was all part of her insidious plot...and it's kind of evil when you think about it. She destroyed her own property just to keep her husband from having a weekend hunting trip. It's diabolical and out of character for her.

Also, earlier we see Margaret instruct little Kathy to "Say exactly what I told you to" over the phone when she calls her friend Janet to say she can't go to her party because her Daddy is going to be away....and just as Jim is walking into the kitchen so he can hear it and feel guilty about going. So Margaret has no qualms to use her little girl as a manipulating tool either. It's really kind of sick.

What bothers me about all of this is that Margaret isn't this type of manipulative and deceitful character. In the end of the episode her sly smile and wink to the camera conveys to us that she's actually pleased and satisfied with herself for ruining her husband's trip. Wow.

Betty seems to understand because we see her smile in satisfaction as well which indicates to me that she's learned this now herself and will use it against her husband when she becomes a wife. What a nice lesson in manipulation and deceit to pass along to your daughter.

I would have rated this much higher if they had all the family members shown to be innocent of any kind manipulation and Jim really was just being paranoid, but that reveal at the end of Margaret being the one pulling the strings put her in a bad light, and her character has never been written that way before or after so it's baffling to watch.

I really love this series and watch a lot of episodes multiple times, but this is the only episode (other than the flashback ones) that I just cannot watch over because of how poorly and underhanded Margaret was written here.

I couldn't tell while watching if this was a straight horror or comedy horror because some scenes played out so weird and unrealistic that I wondered if it was a spoof of the genre.

I won't give too many spoilers here, but there's a bathroom scene where one of the leads ridiculously thinks a demon is in the toilet and does something so completely absurd than what a normal person would do. I actually laughed at how incredibly stupid he was and felt bad for the poor "demon" that was begging for help.

Then there's the surreal conversations the lead characters have with each other while in the midst of a psycho killer on the loose.

They actually argue about their freaking relationship when they should have been protecting themselves or getting help....or maybe just leaving?!.... Speaking of which....

At one point they were miles away from the danger, but they unbelievably willingly return back to psycho killer's lair......because they forgot their dog lol. Seriously!

Why not have the police come back with you when you go back?! Just make the phone call, or stop at a police station first.... But they're too stupid to figure that out and just turn the camper around back to an armed and crazed psycho killer by themselves! It HAD to be a spoof or comedy!

Then there's the unbelievable scene where the lead girl suddenly thinks she's invincible and upon their return, she boldly climbs out of her camper to insult the killer right up in her face without any weapon to protect herself....while her neutered husband just sits in the car watching and psycho killer has a loaded gun.

It was just so surreal that I couldn't believe they filmed this as straight up horror. I would have rated it higher if it was actually meant to be a comedy, but it apparently wasn't.

And that ending was the most terrifying part of all because it insinuated the possibility of additional sequels on the way.

And since when is a hefty trash bag so strong that you can't just pop your finger in it to tear a breathing hole if a psycho killer is attempting to suffocate you with it? I know they're strong bags...but they're not THAT strong!!! I laughed out loud at that ridiculous scene. 3 stars if it was a straight horror, and 5 stars of it was meant to be comedy/horror. Either way, I just can't recommend unless you're really bored for something mindless to watch.

I love horror, but this was so strangely done that I half wondered if it was actually a spoof on the genre than a straight horror. I say this because the victim was made to be so incredibly dumb that it looked like she was spoofing or parodying what some characters do in these types of films when running from a killer.

I won't give much away but I just have to point out what really made me tune out of the film and not care what happened after a certain point.

Here was a woman all alone in a cabin in the mountains.....While reading a book in the evening she hears strange noises right outside. After getting up to investigate, a rock is clearly thrown by someone into the window of the living room she's in.

She begins screaming "Who's out there?" and acting hysterical looking in fear for her life, which is understandable. But what she does 5 minutes later is jaw dropping......he shuts the lights.....AND GOES TO SLEEP!!! LMAO. WHY?!

She went from hysterical and in fear for her life to "I'm going to bed" in the span of 2 minutes. It made no sense at all and that's when I wondered if this was actually a horror spoof movie.

Who would DO that in that kind of situation? She doesn't even use her phone either.... Just turns all the lights out and goes to bed. I was astounded by her actions and didn't care if she lived or died by that point.

There are more instances like this with this woman. She's the dumbest character i've ever seen in a horror film, and i've seen hundreds.

She drops her phone on the ground to run after seeing a dead rabbit hanging from a tree LOL. WHY?! Why do that? Did the sight of a dead rabbit scare her that much to toss her phone away?

The stupidity was just too much with this one....why write her this way unless the intention was for the viewer to root for the killer. But even he wasn't scary as he should've been.

He can't even catch this whimpering idiot when he's wrestling with her in the front seat of her car. I was laughing at parts I should have been biting my nails at.

This could have been a really good suspense flick if the victim were written with a brain. And the police...OMG...there's a known serial killer in the mountains yet the Police Chief sends out one cop to investigate...who is all of 5 feet tall, and a middle aged woman to boot. No backup for her at all?!

If you must watch this film, I suggest you do it on Tubi where it's free. I see that Amazon has the gall to charge $3.99 for this and no one should waste a penny to watch this flick....that alone is the true horror! 1 star for how stupid the main character was written.....I still can't believe SHE WENT TO SLEEP!!...."WHY?" is definitely the perfect title for this mess.

I love these types of suspense films and have learned to be forgiving when there's a plot hole here or plot device used there to further the story along.

But the incidents in this film just kept piling up on top of each other at such speed I sat there incredulous and actually wondered if the writers purposely did it that way to us viewers can poke fun at it. Otherwise, whoever wrote this script should never be allowed to make movies ever again.

****SPOILERS COMING**** Here are just a few of the dozens of unbelievable instances that occurred in this film--- A young woman traveling alone on a 4 day interstate trip is repeatedly followed by a creepy man who nearly got her killed on the highway by not allowing her back into the lane when passing him on a 2 lane road when a semi started coming at her.

Hours later he reappears to her and even a whole day goes by and this creep just keeps appearing wherever she goes but the alarm bells don't go off to this half wit. The next night she's at a rest stop where we see there are men close by who can help her if this creep tried something, but she incredulously just drives away from the safety of the rest stop by herself onto a lonely dark road instead LOL. WHY?!

This creepy man was following her for over 24 hours by this point and the danger bells still don't go off for her?! Come on. As another reviewer noted, this moron couldn't even fit a house plant into her half empty U-Haul in the opening scene so decides instead to just leave it on the sidewalk because fitting it into all that free space available was apparently too much work for her.

She also possesses absolutely ZERO fight or flight skills and not a drop of adrenaline in her body because when she's running for her very life from the creep chasing her through the woods, she steps on a branch that impales into her foot and rather than just yank it out and keep on running, she just sits in the dirt whining in pain and scared to pull it out.

Any normal person would be so high on adrenaline in that instance that they wouldn't even feel the wound, and just pull the twig out and keep running instead of sniveling like a child on the ground.

The creepy killer is no better....he tosses her down into a basement without even bothering to tie her or chain her to anything and is so inept at being a serial killer that he actually leaves the key in the door that locks her away lol. Really...he leaves the key inside the door for her to pluck it out and go free when he's out buying groceries! It's like watching a horror/suspense version of Dumb & Dumber.

There's a final showdown between the two idiots that has to be seen to be believed because it's so jaw dropping silly. Especially the phone call the woman makes to the serial killer's wife instead of calling 911 as he's coming at her with a giant knife. After making the call and getting her on the line, she then THROWS THE WORKING PHONE ONTO THE GROUND TO THE KILLER LMAO!! Why do that? So he can talk with his wife before he kills you instead of you calling 911 and getting HELP?!!

Watch this one only for the jaw dropping stupidity displayed throughout the film. 4 stars and that's being generous.

I love movies about being chased on the road by a crazed psycho in the middle of the desert with nowhere to go for help, but this movie just didn't deliver it for me.

It did build some kind of suspense in the beginning when I wondered just what the hell was going on, but then when things are finally revealed I was left scratching my head because it made no sense to me whatsoever.

******SPOILERS COMING!!!!!!!*******

Ok....since the beginning of time everyone has died. Everyone reading this review will one day die as well as myself too. To portray death as this sinister, evil looking "ferryman" with fangs who slashes people across the chest with pointy fingernails to take them to the other side is absurd. I've obviously never died before, but I highly doubt that death will come in the form of someone/something so sinister and evil.

For this film to portray death as like that is ridiculous because it assumes that when all of our lives are over, we're going to be met with this angry, evil creature who wants to harm us lol. No, I don't think so. Like I said, I have never died (obviously), but inherently, I just do not feel this and thought it was absurd of the filmmakers to imply death this way.

Had the film specifically stated that this was in fact the Devil who was fighting for their souls, I would have given it more stars, but to basically imply that death for all of us is going to be greeted with a sinister evil man with fangs and pointy fingernails who wants to hurt us is not a very good message to send. I can't speak for anyone else, but my personal view of death is the exact opposite of what this film implies.

Had they just said he was the Devil wanting their souls and the waitress and busboy in the diner were angels who were trying to fight the Devil and help the couple, it would have been so much better and more suspenseful for me.

That would have really elevated this film up a lot imo. I'm giving it 2 stars only for the beautiful visuals of the desert that the film was produced in (it really was breathtaking to look at)...and I thought the woman who played the waitress was pretty good and while watching the movie I was wishing that she were the lead character instead because I felt she was much more interesting than the lead actress and I liked her a lot more.

I can't recommend this film because even without the absurdity of implying that Death is some evil and sinister being waiting to devour us all, it's just a really boring and foolish movie. I'm rating it 2 stars (and that's being very generous).

I found this on Tubi for free and it held my attention to the end which is actually saying a lot for films made these days. The creepiness of the landlord was well done and his character really grossed me out the way he'd ogle the tenants through the hidden cameras and looking like he was ready to climax all over himself at any second lol. He was so effectively sinister, disgusting and gross.

It was all good up until the final acts where the wife found one of the cameras outside the front door and got all bent out of shape about it. It was weird because the front door is where you normally expect to find a camera lens so why did she go all nuts about it?

And if she found that one, why was it not as easy for her to find the ones in her shower and around the inside of the house....and most especially in the toilet bowl where he apparently had one facing where she eliminated her waste.

Why on earth did he want to look at that too?! Yuck! I'd think even a tiny camera looking up from the toilet water would be noticeable to her if she found one all the way up top of the front door. And when the toilet wouldn't flush, she should have noticed it then when she was paying attention to it.

Another thing that bothered me was as another reviewer stated here....the husband is having an affair with his hot coworker, yet brings her to his house to get it on with her in the poll rather than go to her place or to a motel.....why the hell would you bring her to your own home?!

And even more unbelievable, she had her own key to his home and just walked in when he was out with his wife....so either she secretly made her own key from his key ring (which would be difficult to do without his knowing the keys were missing while she duplicated it....or he actually gave her a key to his house to have for herself.) That made no sense at all.

Then there's Hannah's kidnapping by the creepy landlord.....Rather than take her somewhere to hide her....he locks her right there inside the couple's own home down in the basement lol. WHY?! Did creepy really think the couple would never notice a woman was chained up right below them inside the house?!

And creepy is shown feeding her hamburgers and wants her to wear pretty dresses while she's locked down there so he obviously seems to want her to live...yet when she escapes he quickly kills her in the pool rather than just subdue her and chain her up again somewhere else. So why didn't he just kill her the first time?! Made no sense at all.

Then there's the part when Hannah burst out of the basement and the couple realize the creepy landlord had her locked down there. This is where logical people would all just quickly leave that creep house together and get in the car to get far away from there.

Yet the doofus cheating husband tosses his wife and mistress into the bathroom telling them to stay in there and call the police when conveniently, wife's phone suddenly had no signal....yet throughout the whole movie it worked perfectly fine when Hannah would call it lol. Please.

I'm so tired of the plot device of cell phones losing signals just when victims need to use them for help. It's really very rare these days to lose signals anywhere so I wish films would stop using that lame plot device.

Why they didn't all just leave the house initially together made no sense and then creepy just decides to bash husbands head into mush with a hammer and that made no sense to me.

Throughout the whole film he didn't seem to be a murderer and when Hannah was coming to the house to tell about her affair with the husband to the wife, creepy ambushed her, so it appeared he wanted to help the cheating husband by doing that....so it made no sense when he just bashed husband's head in later on.

And weren't there any neighbors to hear all this commotion going on? Why didn't the husband just tell the women to go to the neighbors for help?!

This could have been so much better had the writers thought it out more and made it a little more realistic like having the couple find Hannah and were then thrust into a fight for survival with creepy. Had that happened, I could've accepted the husband and Hannah getting killed since they would have been fighting for their lives and at least given a chance....but no one even had a chance because creepy just killed them without any effort or fight.

And I won't even get into the absurdity of the final scene where the wife became creepy's new captive while he was apparently raising her newborn baby as his own lol. Where and how did she give birth?! Give me a break....stupid stupid nonsensical ending.

Granted, all the victims in this film weren't the least bit likable to begin with, but at least give them a chance to put up a fight. It's why I love to watch these horror/suspense films....so I can see the victims fight back and try to survive.

What's the point when the killer wins in the end? It just negates everything that came before it if no one gets out alive or manages to get free. And really, who wants to see a creeper like that be the victor before the credits roll? I'd rather have seen that guy's head bashed in instead.

I'm giving it 5 stars because it held my attention till the end and even though the characters were unlikable, the acting was good...and that landlord was really creepy as all hell.

I see there are 2 sequels to this so i'll probably give them a watch soon. Thankfully those too are free on Tubi. Hopefully creepy gets his head bashed in in one of those.

SPOILERS are in my review from the beginning so scroll away now if you want to watch this film without knowing the key plot points.....

I'm a big fan of 'fight for survival' and 'cat and mouse' films where the protagonist has to match wits with his or her attacker to survive the ordeal, but this film was just so badly done that it was painful for me to slog through to the end...but I did make it....and it was really quite a chore to finish it.

WHY didn't the guy just kill Karen when she opened the door to accept the delivery package and be done with it in 2 seconds? What the heck was that whole elaborate 5 man cat and mouse chase for instead? What on earth purpose did that serve except to be a lame plot device to see the protagonist go all Rambo on the 5 of them? There was just no reason for the 5 men on 1 girl chase that ensued when the delivery guy (who was one of the killers) could have just offed her when she accepted the package early in the evening. It would've taken 2 seconds to do it and the police would have chalked it up to a random killing.

For the ex husband/ex boyfriend to make such a big plan with 4 other guys (friends of his?) to chase her around an empty warehouse (that was apparently the size of Disney World) to kill her made no sense at all.

And the girl was no better. She had her phone right in her back pocket, yet when she realized there were 4 men trying to kill her she doesn't instinctively reach for the phone to call, or even silently text anyone for help. It's not until one of the killers catch up to her later on that her phone falls out of her back pocket and slides across the floor for the killer to break into little pieces.

WHY didn't she whip the phone out when she was hiding inside the barrel earlier?! I seriously doubt she forgot she had it lol. It's giant plot holes like this that pull me right out of the movie and is also insulting to boot. It tells me that the writer really thinks the audience is stupid.

Also, this girl never says a word either. I'm sorry, but if 4 strange men are suddenly trying to kill me while i'm working the first night at a night shift warehouse janitor job, i'd be shouting "Why are you doing this?! What do you want from me?!" It's just natural instinct to question this, but this character stays quiet even while the killer is right on top of her trying to take her life.

Isn't she at least curious why 4 men are chasing her around like this at her janitor job out of the blue?! I can see if she was working overnight at a bank watching a vault with billions of dollars inside. That would make sense because they'd want to get to the money....but why would 4 men want to take this much trouble to kill a female night janitor in some giant empty warehouse that had nothing of value? She didn't seem the least bit curious to ask LOL. Another clue that the writer apparently feels that the viewer watching is a complete idiot.

There are so many better fight for survival/cat and mouse horror/suspense flicks out there to choose from over this. Watch this one if you must, but i'm warning you now, you will lose brain cells watching it.

Oh and she has a screwdriver at the very beginning of the ordeal that she used to stab the hand of one of the killers, yet she drops it when she runs away LOL.... Sorry, but if you're in an empty warehouse overnight with 4 killers, you hold on to your weapons!! Whoever wrote this trash really had no clue how to properly write this type of story because absolutely none of it made any sense.

And finally, why kill the mother of your child just because she got custody of her? If you cared anything about your own daughter, you wouldn't take her mother's life. It's just another thing that made no sense. Perhaps a little back story would have put that into some kind of perspective, or probably not.

This is really just a bad, bad movie that will insult your intelligence the longer you watch it. It gets a 1 star rating from me and only because that's the minimum to give....otherwise it would get zero stars from me because there's absolutely nothing redeemable about this badly written film. Nothing at all. Give this a pass and find another cat and mouse flick to watch. You've been warned. Definitely NOT recommended.

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did and found myself into the movie up until the third act when it all seemed to fall apart. For the first 3/4 of the film though, the story and acting was all good and the suspense kept building up. But when the Margaux, the Smart Home entity revealed her sinister intentions to the house guests, the film didn't seem to know where to go after that and seemed to scatter in different directions.

It's a shame because up till Margaux's deadly reveal it was really good and the actors were also good too. It was just in the final act where I began to lose interest and would have preferred more of a serious fight for survival rather than the comedic tone it veered into. I don't mind comedy/horror, but this didn't seem to be that genre going into it so to have comedy pop up during the most intense final scenes kinda threw me for a loop. I don't want to laugh when characters are fighting for their lives. I want to feel the suspense/horror of the situations they're in instead.

!!!!! SPOILERS COMING!!!!!!

And the final minute really ruined it for me...I won't do into detail and spoil anything specific but i've noticed this trend in modern horrors lately where the ending tends to be bleak and dark rather than positive, and I really don't like that. I guess i'm an old school horror fan, but is it so wrong to have a positive ending after watching 90 minutes of bloodbath and murders? Come on...at least have a Final Girl make it out and go free. The sinister tone during the final seconds of this was so bleak and depressing. Couldn't they have had the Final Girl fight for survival and blow the Margaux Smart Home sky high to smithereens instead of having her whimpering like a scared little girl in a locked car while Margaux's voice creeped out of the dashboard about to kill her before the credits? When everyone dies in these horror films, what's the point? You need a survivor who fights back and makes it out alive, otherwise we're just watching a complete massacre where evil wins out and that's not very entertaining.

I'm rating it a generous 7 because the story was engaging and the acting was surprisingly good for a low budget film like this. It all just fell apart during the final acts and I really wish someone had made it out alive and blew that smart home away in a fantastic and giant explosion. It would've been such a better ending.

The final scenes of this episode are both shocking and gut wrenching and it's surprising to me that something this heavy and dramatic aired on network television in it's time.

I haven't finished the whole series yet but this episode most definitely stands way up at the top for me as one of the best of the entire series.

For a show that's usually light with the stories, this was a pretty far departure into gritty reality storytelling, but had me riveted throughout those final scenes.

When Linc blew up the boat killing the commie soldier it was pretty shocking even though you knew he had to do it to save himself and Tod.

This is imo an episode of Route 66 not to be missed and a solid 10 with excellent acting and storytelling all around.

And I'm really liking Glenn Corbett as Linc the more I watch him. I do miss Buz of course, but I think Linc is a great character with a solid moral compass and I like the actor as well. Don't miss this great episode!

The premise is really great but the film doesn't live up to it at all. I got hooked into it from the trailer because I love fight for survival flicks. However, this one was not only too predictable and lacking suspense, but the interjection of political stuff that Hollywood loves to shove into every movie made me tune out quickly.

Here's a suspense film about a woman being shot at by an unknown killer in an isolated gas station, yet instead of being enthralled in that horror situation, the viewer is subjected to talk about racism, guns, anti vaxxers, and what a messed up country America is. What the hell?!

It was surreal and jarring and had no place in a film like this, but this is the New Woke Hollywood of today that wants to shove their crazed politics into every form of modern entertainment which effectively ruins the movie.

And they can show close ups of a billboard saying "God is Nowhere" all they want like they did countless times in this movie. Really...it was like every 5 minutes they would linger on that billboard.... I will never allow it to brainwash me to believe that because I believe that God is EVERYWHERE and Hollywood can hate on God all they like, but they will never change my mind about that. And why try?! It's weird.

They showed closeups of that billboard way too many times for it to be subtle. It's as if they were trying to convince the viewer that it was true. Why do that? Is New Hollywood really that afraid of God?

Even for the non religious viewer, this movie will not entertain many who are fans of suspense/horror genre due to the blatant politics and anti God message that infects it.

And the main character was shown to be a loose amoral woman cheating on her man who she has the gall to keep his face as wallpaper on her phone but then shacks up with another man in a seedy motel room.

And to make us hate her even more, she video calls him saying how she loves him while her lover jumps in the shower behind her LOL. Are we really expected to care if she has her head blown off in a gas station? I didn't and cheered when her lover got blown away when he walked in the station.

A premise like this could have easily been 10 star rating by me but I have to give it 1 star for being so boring, predictable and offensive.

A dumb couple take a row boat out on the water and when it starts looking like rain, instead of going back to the safe marina that they came from, the husband decides to steer them into swampland.

Incredibly, he continues on until there's literally no water left to float the boat on. Why he didn't turn the boat around when the water level began dropping is a mystery.

They actually abandon the boat and begin walking in the woods for a house they can use a phone at. And even after witnessing a murder while out of sight in bushes, they STILL don't go back to their boat and get the hell outta there! You have to wonder how these two idiots managed to live as long as they did.

When they come across a decrepit looking old farmhouse, they don't put two and two together and deduce it may belong to the savage hillbillies they just saw murder a guy. They decide to enter the home like it's their own place and look around for a phone and when the hillbillies return, they're not very happy people!

What ensues afterwards is the husband losing his spine and the woman taking control of the situation as we tend to see in movies nowadays. Man are bad and weak, woman good and strong is the message. Yawn.

The woman of course annihilates the bad hillbillies one by one while her sniveling, neutered, pile of goo husband helplessly watches on. One scene that really had me scratching my head was where she had a loaded shotgun and could have just blown the rest of the hillbillies away after killing the first, but she strangely doesn't use it!!

What she does instead makes no sense whatsoever. She places a half broken bottle up inside her lady parts and allows the hillbilly to take her up to bed. How she managed to walk all the way from the outside barn, to the main house and up the stairs with a half broken bottle up herself with nary a scratch is just amazing!

She lays down on the bed and allows the hillbilly to insert himself into her where his male parts quickly becomes a flesh teared bloody mess. Yikes! She then plucks the broken bottle out of her with surprisingly amazing ease and tosses it onto the floor while the man screams in pain while clutching his shredded, bloody manhood.

I wondered why she chose to go through such an elaborate and dangerous plan like that when she had a loaded shotgun in the barn and could have just blown his head off when he entered. Why place a broken bottle up yourself instead?! Ouch!

This could have been much better had the couple not been imbeciles and the man not been such a sniveling wimp--and that bottle scene was just really dumb because I doubt any woman in her right mind would choose to do that over just pulling the trigger on a shotgun and been done with it. 3 stars only for the gore.

Disclaimer: There's going to be spoilers revealed in my review so if you haven't yet watched the episode and don't want to know major plot revelations don't read the rest of my review and come back later!

This episode had me guessing throughout most of it because many times I was asking myself "Just what the hell is going on in this town?!" It's a story that unfolds slowly as the episode progresses and it kept me hanging on to find out what the heck this was all about.

The lovely Susan Oliver plays Joan Maslow. A woman who returns to her hometown after 10 or so years away following the death of her mother.

She's returning home to move her mother's final resting place from a Potter's Field over to a nicer cemetery on top of a hill. Joan is met with opposition from nearly everyone in town who tries to block her attempt to move her mother.

I kept wondering why all these people were so adamant about stopping her from moving her Mom's grave? The woman was long dead and moving her resting place wasn't going to hurt anyone so it had me baffled as to why everyone in town was so against her mission. It was quite the mystery until things were fully revealed.

The revelation was that Joan's Mom was a loose, hard drinking woman who had relations with a lot of the men in the town back then and their wives still harbored hate and resentment towards her even though she's been dead for 10 years.

I still couldn't see why they were so against moving the woman to a different cemetery no matter what she had done or what their feelings were towards her.

Couldn't they understand her daughter just wanting to place her in a nicer final resting place. Wouldn't they want the same for their own mothers, no matter what kind of a live she had lived?

In the end we find out that Joan hated her mother and was only doing it because she wanted to shame her by doing something nice for her. She says this was her way of paying her back for being the kind of mother she was, but I didn't believe that excuse.

In the final scene, she begins crying over her mother's freshly moved grave and wonders aloud why she's crying when she hated her. Tod points out how she says "hated" in the past tense meaning her hate is now gone.

But I don't think it was ever really there. I think she wanted to do this for her mother out of love and she tried to convince herself over the years that it was being done out of hate or some kind of payback to her.

Susan Oliver owns this episode and gives a riveting performance as Joan. She successfully conveys a range of emotions with just her eyes and facial expressions while interacting with the various townspeople who are less than welcoming towards her that made me really care about the character. And I was glad when she finally found some closure in the final scene at her mother's grave.

I agree with another reviewer here that the ending could have shown Tod and Buzz stay with Joan rather than just walk away so abruptly and I wish they had shown the three of them leaving the grave together instead. But that's my only minor nitpick.

I first "discovered" Susan Oliver last year when watching "Never Say Goodbye" in The Fugitive and loved her performance so much that now whenever I see her name in the opening credits of other shows I know i'm in for a treat.

I see from another review here that this was her first of three guest appearances on Route 66 and i'm very much looking forward to the other two. 10/10 for this outstanding episode.

Before watching this I read some reviews of others being offended by the blatant PC of the lead character and I was all set to hate the film because I didn't want my beloved 80's being infected by it.

Perhaps it was just my perspective, but what I saw was PC being parodied throughout the film. The lead character Jamie travels to 1987 from 2023 and comes off like an overly sensitive imbecile when she arrives, immediately checking everyone that she crosses paths with for their oh so ignorant 1980's ways.

And thankfully, the 80's characters weren't made to look like idiots either because most of them checked her right back against her stick in the mud PC ways. I loved how they held their own when faced with her absurd 21st century scolding and it was so refreshing to see characters fighting back to the silliness of it.

When Jamie got all bent out of shape when she saw the carload of guys drive up to the cabin when it was supposed to be just the girls night together, the 80's girl replies to her "Did you think we were gonna lez out all weekend?" I howled with laughter at that, but 21st century PC Jamie chastises her for saying such a hateful homophobic slur. Please. This gay viewer found the comment hysterical and I cringe so much when straight people like her decide to speak for me as to what comments should be considered "homophobic". Unless you're gay yourself, you really have no right to define it for me. Her "lez out" line was damn funny.

She makes these stupid PC comments throughout the film and tries to correct everyone but comes off as an overly sensitive idiot. This is why I think it's purposely done as a parody of the PC nonsense because she sounded so dumb when she opened her mouth.

The overall story here was pretty similar to 2015's "The Final Girls" (which I loved) mixed with "Back to the Future" with a little bit of "Scream" thrown into the mix and I enjoyed the plot of finding the killer and trying to prevent the 1987 murders.

I have only 2 nitpicks of the movie. First was the scene where the police refuse the blood samples of the killer. Jamie mentions DNA which was certainly in use by police by 1987. A simple Google search will tell you that, so the police would have surely known what DNA was and wouldn't have tossed the evidence on the floor while laughing like idiots. Really sad writing there. Didn't these writers even bother to fact check these simple things?!

***MINOR SPOILER COMING*** And then there's a twist revealed at the end while on the gravity ride that seemed to be just thrown in for twist sake and it only complicated things. I liked how the killer was unmasked before the twist occurred and I think they should have just left it at that. What happened after we found out who the killer is was just a little too reminiscent of "Scream" for me and i'm so over those tired Scream type twists because the movie didn't need it.

All in all I thought it was a fun movie and nothing here offended me because I felt they were actually making fun of PC stuff rather than desecrating my beloved 80's with it.

I'm an 80's teen myself and was all set to despise this film but I actually found it funny, fast paced and even endearing in some parts. I think they could have spent a little more time getting the late 80's styles right, but it's another small nitpick. 7/10.

While still enjoyable, it felt more scattered and less focused to me than the original film. Like a lot more was going on over the first one. The addition of the multiverse was fun, but I wondered why Tree didn't seem to have an original version of herself in the alternate universe like Ryan did. She wasn't replacing her alternate self in that world, so the original Tree in that universe had to be there somewhere and I think it would have been fun to see the two cross paths.

---------SPOILERS AHEAD-------- And after Tree was sent back to her original world, where was the original Tree in the alternate world after Tree #2 left it?! She had to be somewhere if Ryan's other version was there. I felt it was a plot hole that should have been filled in. It did feel more like a romantic sci-fi comedy than horror as others have noted, and that's not bad, but a little more horror/suspense would have been welcomed.

The reveal of the killer at the end (I won't share that spoiler) felt anti-climactic and kind of a head scratcher because when I found out why everything was happening, I thought to myself "Why would you go through all that trouble just for that?!" It seemed too lame of an excuse from the killer. It's still a fun film and I enjoyed it, and if there's another sequel to it i'll definitely watch. 7/10.

Friday the 13th was a huge megahit when it released in spring of 1980. This bad carbon copy was filmed that August so it was obviously made to ride the coattails off that hit.

It's not unwatchable, but it is pretty boring. The film lacks any suspense, the kills are ho hum and the final scene where tension is supposed to be at it's highest is a surprising bore.

And there's an unintentionally hysterical scene in a makeshift raft where the serial killer literally slices and dices all 10 campers in 30 seconds lol. Please.

I howled with laughter during that entire scene because it was so absurdly unrealistic. Even Jason never murdered this many people in one shot!

I never heard of this flick until browsing Prime tonight for slasher films to watch and as an 80's teen, I thought I knew all the horrors that came out during that time, but this stinker must have come and gone from theaters after only 2 weeks. Thankfully it was so bad it didn't generate any sequels. Watch this one only for nostalgia sake...and for early 80's gratuitous display of T&A.

I'm rating it 3 stars because it was watchable and if you're a horror buff it's worth a watch if nothing better is available.