By Geno McGahee
The 1980s was the decade of the slasher film. FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE BURNING, MADMAN, THE PREY, and countless others took place in the woods with a killing force and it struck a chord. People love camping and the 80s was a time when it just seemed more popular. The horror filmmakers want to rattle the audience, making something that is relatable, which is the key to scaring the audience. In the obscure horror film “JUST BEFORE DAWN”, we have the formula in place. We have campers, a remote location, not one, but two old guys, warning them not to go, and maniacs that enjoy killing hiding in the woods.
We do have a couple of noticeable horror people in this. We have Mike Kellin as “Ty,” but you may remember him from SLEEPAWAY CAMP. Ralph Seymour is the nerd, again, as “Daniel”, and you may remember him from the demon/slasher film “KILLER PARTY.” George Kennedy plays the forest ranger, “Roy,” and, as always, he does a great job. You may remember him from THE NAKED GUN series.
Ty and his brother are hunters, I think, and they encounter two large men that seem rather slow and turn out to be extremely brutal. Ty gets away and runs into the campers and begs for a ride. They refuse and as they drive away, Ty notices one of the big killers has climbed on top of their Winnebago. That leads to a great maniacal laugh and it is one of those great ones where they used a different laugh that didn’t match the audio. Remember in PLANET OF THE APES, Charlton Heston laughed when he saw the American flag planted and the laugh didn’t match Heston’s mouth. They didn’t think that his laugh was over the top enough…so they recorded another version and just replaced the original audio with it. It was the same deal here and Ty was very amusing with it.
The campers arrive and put up their tents. Jonathan (Chris Lemmon), Warren (Gregg Henry), Constance (Deborah Benson), Megan (Jamie Rose) and Daniel, are all fun-loving and enjoying the time with Mother Nature. The area is beautiful and it made them forget all about the warnings from the old guys. The film does understand how to create tension. There is a rope bridge that the campers must cross and you know that somebody is going to fall off of it and die eventually. Just watching the group nearly fall is tense and a lot of people have a fear of heights. It plays on that too.
The group encounters a family that tries to scare them off. At one point, they fire a shot through their nice boom box, destroying it. Hey, this was the 1980s…boom boxes were the thing to have. They were huge, loud, and told the crowd: “Yeah, I’m probably trying to compensate for something here with this enormous thing, but damn my Duran Duran has never sounded better.” When the boom box is blown up, the group realizes that staying may be an issue, but they do it anyway and that leads to the encounter with the big boys.
JUST BEFORE DAWN doesn’t break any new ground and doesn’t stand out among the slashers of the time, but it is a good film. It does have a HILLS HAVE EYES sort of feel to it more than a FRIDAY THE 13TH but it does mix elements of both. The acting is good, the ending predictable, but if you love 1980’s slasher horror, then this is for you. I recommend it. I also recommend watching how the last bad guy is taken out…it was very unique.
Rating: 7/10
