Beauty and Butchery: A Backwoods Overview

Backwoods horror has always made sense to me.

The solitude from civilization.

The balance of the harmony of nature interrupted by spurts of violent havoc.

The will to survive against the odds by using resources innovatively and strategically.

The primal timelessness of connection with the Earth that lies within every person and is awakened in the face of a grave danger.

From since I was very young, I have always loved the woods and have spent a lot of time there. I was born and raised in Sugarloaf/Warwick/Chester, NY (Warwick mailing address and school district, technically on Chester property, but closer to the hamlet of Sugar Loaf than either town center – I don’t know where the hell I lived). My parents’ house, which I resided in for about the first 20 years of my life, was in a very quaint area with lots of access to forest and wooded area. It wasn’t unusual to hear packs of coyotes howling at night, shotgun blasts ringing off during various hunting seasons, and the crisp snapping noise of tall pine trees cracking from high winds on frigid winter nights.

To each direction from the house were an array of rural sights. From the front door looking out was a wooded area that was disrupted by a large rusted metal building frame for a gym that was scheduled to be built, but never was. Further ahead was Sugar Loaf Mountain, the tallest of a set of mountains framing the valley region, whose balding top and defined, pointed frame made it stand out prominently amongst the others.

To the left were rolling hills and greenery where the winding road was visible intermittently between crests and valleys for about half a mile.

To the right the road ended in a T intersection about 300 feet from the driveway’s entrance. Looking straight head was the most wooded direction, with miles of untouched forest, the only visible path through being a row of power lines cutting a straightaway until vanishing over a hill.

Behind the back yard were a couple of small, overgrown fields that ended in a line of tall oak trees, creating a barrier where field blended into shallow forest.

I explored them all and often when I was younger. I’d often be doing this with my neighbors Nick and Pete, who were 4 and 2 years older than me, which I think made it easier for my parents to allow me to go out of the yard and all around the area at a young age. As I got a little bit older I would then also go out by myself for hours at a time. Sometime I would be right across the road, and other times I would be trekking up Sugar Loaf Mountain, or wandering through the forest looking for a new interesting spot, or clearing out a good one I had found as to claim it as my spot. I’d get to encounter odd sounds, woodland animals, itchy plants (that sucked), and plenty of strange and creepy locations – be they ruins of old stone huts or burnt out discarded appliances that I could never figure out just how they got there. The nearby woods were my stomping ground for a long time growing up and they could range from peaceful, to scary, to beautiful, to exciting all in the course of an afternoon.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I got into horror at an early age. Since I also spent a lot of time in the woods at an early age, the connection was an easy one to make for me. It seemed organic and the connection between some of the on screen mayhem I would witness and a place I knew of down the road that had a similar setting made the jump to the conclusion “oh yeah, I could totally see that shit happening” a short one to make. That combined with firsthand knowledge that the woods could yield both beauty and danger, or serenity and fear at the same time created an even stronger bond with these movies for me – being able to relate in a way I wasn’t even sure how to put into words well at the time – just understanding the feeling of the correlation between two things that interested me greatly. In turn, during my childhood, throughout my teenage years, and up until today the woods fed my love of horror, and horror fed my love for the woods – each overlapping and building upon each other back and forth through the years.

“Backwoods horror” doesn’t even really cover the field of horror movies I’m talking about fully. By that I mean I’m not JUST talking about Hillbilly horror movies or survival horror movies, but also campground and woodsy slasher movies, monster and eco/nature takes revenge movies, found footage movies, and other movies that generally have an overtly nature orientated, wooded, or very rural or small town setting – of which there are of course about 4 billion.

Ones that have impacted me and my my rural fixation from well-known classics, (Night of the Living Dead , Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Blair Witch Project) to cult classics, (Evil Dead, The Prophecy -1979, The Burning, Just Before Dawn) to more obscure titles (Night of the Demon -1980, The Creeper/Rituals, Snakes/Fangs, The Final Terror).

While I was toying with the idea of making a top 10 list for backwoods horror movies or segmenting them into different further categories and listing a bunch off, I decided instead to leave you with a fun little checklist of sorts to “rank” a horror movie’s degree of “backwoodstivity” if you will. Think of it as a celebration of some of the more beloved, sometimes silly, sometimes dark, but almost always damn entertaining traits of backwoods and other rural horror movies.

The goal is to take a backwoods horror movie and see how it ranks. Disclaimer – This holds no accountability for the QUALITY of the movie, just the degree to which it is a movie in this category – but if it has a bunch of these… then come on! It’s a good time on some level!

Ready?

ADD UP ALL THAT APPLY TO THE MOVIE. THE HIGHER THE SCORE THE MORE BACKWOODS YOUR MOVIE IS:

• Majority of the movie takes place at a campground/wilderness/bayou/tiny desert town/ farm house/similar place with more trees or dirt than people ….. 50 POINTS

• There’s a campfire involved ….. 20 POINTS

• There’s a campfire involved with campfire stories ….. 25 POINTS

• Particular natural elements directly make conditions/survival much harder ….. 25 POINTS

• There’s a killer/monster/legend “out there” and someone’s been TOLD not to fuck with it ….. 25 POINTS

• That someone who told them is missing teeth/drinking something in a paper bag/is wearing overalls/doesn’t have shoes ….. 15 POINTS

• Someone stalks someone through the woods or similar desolate outdoor area ….. 20 POINTS

• A character has to uses supplies innovatively to survive due to the outdoor setting (as a tool/trap/weapon/etc.) ….. 20 POINTS

• A Main character is wearing a cowboy/straw hat ….. 10 POINTS

• Another one is too ….. 15 POINTS

• Sound effects of crickets/wolves/coyotes ….. 10 POINTS

• Panoramic views of woodlands/streams/treetops/desert background ….. 10 POINTS

• They go on for more than 5 seconds at a time ….. 15 POINTS

• Images of real live animals in their natural outdoor habitat are used ….. 15 POINTS

• Images of dead animals are used ….. 15 POINTS

• The killer(s)/evil force doesn’t speak (but MAY grunt and make other noises) not because it can’t or doesn’t situationally, but because it’s a primal or animalistic being ….. 15 POINTS

• Camo ….. 15 POINTS

• Denim shirt ….. 15 POINTS

• More than 2 people are wearing plaid shirts ….. 15 POINTS

• One of them is the sheriff …. 20 POINTS

• An average civilian character doesn’t need to find a gun or weapon when shit hits the fan. They already have one ….. 10 POINTS

• Boating/rafting/canoeing scene ….. 15 POINTS

• There’s a very small town and there’s a scene in its bar/general store ….. 10 POINTS

• Beer from a can or whiskey makes an appearance on a porch/at the campfire/in a truck/or in a small town bar ….. 15 POINTS

• Someone gets told they’re “not from these parts”/ “That’s not how folks around here are”/ “It’s quite here and that’s how we like it”/ etc. ….. 15 POINTS

• Hunting/fishing occurs or has a part in the story ….. 15 POINTS

• “ya’ll”/ “Go on now”/ “Be back directly”/ “I reckon”/ “ya heard now”/ “go on, Git!” etc. is said ….. 3 POINTS EACH TIME

POINT TOTALS:

0 - 49: PURE CITY SLICKER: Not a backwoods bone in its body – maybe a character just runs into a someone from the country for a minute.

50 – 99: HORROR LIGHT LIME BACKYARD FLICK: Realistically, you’re probably watching a nature documentary or a fishing show – where’s the horror?

100 – 149: CERTIFIED BACKWOODS : Now we’re getting somewhere. The quintessential backwoods movie, though likely still light … or just tactful.

150 – 199: GET OFF MY LAND!: Someone pissed something off that likes it outdoors and they’re going to pay. The hot sauce of backwoods horror.

200 – 299: MOONSHINE MURDER MANIA: You’ve officially entered no man’s land. Good luck finding your way back…

300 +: RAGING BLAZE OF NATURE’S BANE: Concentrated middle of nowhere horror insanity extract. You’re probably watching a full bore motion picture stereotype that relishes in excess and it’s probably preposterous, but lots of fun. That or you’re tripping on acid in Alabama.

Hope this adds some extra fun to your nature-related horror viewings.

And hey, get out there sometime and see some of the beauty that inspired some of the greatest settings in tons of horror movies. Maybe it’ll add that extra layer of enjoyment to your viewings like it unquestionably did for me.

Or maybe you’ll die a terrible death from a foreboding woodland terror…

Nahhhh, you’ll be fine…