Just Before Dawn Reviews
TheDudeLebowski65
Super Reviewer
October 1, 2011
Just Before Dawn can be seen as an obscured gem in the Slasher genre. Released in the early 1980's, Just Before Dawn barely made a ripple in the thriving Slasher genre of the early 80's. I think this is a great shame because upon watching this film, you realize that Just Before Dawn is not like your typical Slasher film that relies solely on the blood and guts routine. Yes, there's some bloody killings, but it's pretty minimal stuff. What makes this Slasher film better than most is the fact that the director uses creepy atmosphere with a slow buildup to create the tension, and that is the key to why the film works so well. Just Before Dawn limits the violence the violence factors and uses more convincing tactics i order to build the horror in the viewer, that's where the eerie atmosphere, suspense and dark and creepy film score come into play. These are some of the elements that made Halloween such an effective horror film, and director Jeff Lieberman has crafted something that is quite frankly better than many of the big slasher films that came out during this period. Just Before Dawn, along with Halloween proves that you don't need massive amounts of blood and gore to create an effective, and terrifying Slasher film. With the right elements you can create something spooky that will deliver the thrills that horror fans crave dearly. A well crafted atmospheric slasher film that delivers good acting, great scares with good bloody kills, and doesn't try to go overboard either. A must see for Slasher film fans.
bbcfloridabound
Super Reviewer
June 15, 2011
A 1980 Slasher movie that has Drive-In written all over it. 5 young people take a camper into the mountains of California only to stumble upon a man running thru the woods claiming his buddy has been murdered. Does this turn them back, nope, even after park ranger George Kennedy tells them not to go up on the mountain, but one of the young people hold a deed to the property and he is going. So begins a want to be Jason running around the mountain killing people. Some beautiful scenes of 2 beautiful women of the 1980 era, Jamie Rose who we see topless shots of while in the lake and a got more beautiful as she grew older Deborah Benson. Its not the best slasher movie, might have been top notch in 1980 but I can only give it a 3 star rating today.
staindslaved
Super Reviewer
October 22, 2012
The quintessential hillbilly slasher film it doesn't measure up to the grander achievements in the sub-genre but it certainly has its unnerving moments and has a nice gender study element to compliment the straight forward slice and dice premise.
John2223
Super Reviewer
January 31, 2008
Wrong Turn without the action, blood and suspense. Good location and decent acting however I found myself bored a lot of the time. Not gory at all nor good slash just the opening death worth watching.
ken j
Super Reviewer
July 17, 2008
One of the many overlooked campers in the woods getting stalked by killer pics was released around the sametime as friday the 13th and in some circles this is considered the first before friday the 13th 2 couples against the sheriffs orders go up into the mountains to look at property left to one of the friends little do they know there is a family of inbreds up there too and they dont take kindly to strangers the usual slasher kills and very little plot keep this at a three star movie if bored and like 80's horror worth a watch
Christopher B
Super Reviewer
May 11, 2007
However, if you are a Jeff Liberman fan, skip the DVD commentary. "The Texas Chainsaw Murders"? Even my wife knows it's "Massacre" and she never watches horror films. If he was trying to prove that he never saw it, it worked, but unfortunately also makes him look like an idjit in the process. And "Showing the murderer in the BG creates suspense"? Ya think? Did you think up that ingenius concept? Oh well, great movie from a great director who I never want to hear talk again. (though he's not near as bad as Zak Snyder's Dawn of the Dead commentary. I wanted to punch him. "He's a superstar!")
One of the better entries in the slasher genre, this modestly made horror is very atmospheric and the villain is quite scary. The use of ambient noise rather than a score is very effective as well.
However, if you are a Jeff Liberman fan, skip the DVD commentary. "The Texas Chainsaw Murders"? Even my wife knows it's "Massacre" and she never watches horror films. If he was trying to prove that he never saw it, it worked, but unfortunately also makes him look like an idjit in the process. And "Showing the murderer in the BG creates suspense"? Ya think? Did you think up that ingenius concept? Oh well, great movie from a great director who I never want to hear talk again. (though he's not near as bad as Zak Snyder's Dawn of the Dead commentary. I wanted to punch him. "He's a superstar!")
jjb3332003
May 12, 2013
A fine overlooked slasher film that, much like Halloween, relies more on atmosphere and a good soundtrack than on blood and guts.
July 24, 2012
A moody slasher film with a twist that actually explains the biggest slasher cliche of all: why is the killer so good at killing.
lissaluv1969
July 7, 2009
82 or 83 as a teen at an all night horror-thon at our local drive-in and I never forgot it.The final show down between the psycho and the heroine- oh man!
Saw this back in
82 or 83 as a teen at an all night horror-thon at our local drive-in and I never forgot it.The final show down between the psycho and the heroine- oh man!
March 3, 2008
The film opens on an uncle and a nephew out hunting in the mountains, the two of them in an abandoned church making jokes (of the benign heretical variety) when a strange man appears at the door with a large machete-like knife (with serrations! eeg!) which he promptly makes use of. From here I was thinking--hey, this isn't a slasher, I see no teenag--oh. There we are, an RV (The Hills Have Eyes!) filled with five kids. Apparently they are going camping, and we have two couples and a nerdy fifth wheel with a camera. Oh dear. This doesn't look good. I smell flat characters and generic, predictable tripe. But my hopes are higher than that, at least a teensy bit, because I saw that the score I've been enjoying, a nice, moody deep synthetic score with the occasional strings and single snare drum (are these synthetic too? the drum didn't sound like it) was written by none other than Brad Fiedel, who also scored the original The Terminator (and its sequel), Fright Night, Desert Bloom, The Serpent and the Rainbow--amongst many others. The theme from The Terminator, at the least, is one of my favourites.*
And yet, here was a surprise. There's George Kennedy (he of Naked Gun, Flight of the Phoenix, and so on) as a Forest Service employee working on a bonsai tree and calming down his horse Agatha. He warns the kids (eek, more clichés, though this was only '81) and asks where they're going, and they actually have reason for where they're going--young Warren (Gregg Henry, who I've seen a thousand times in varying roles, usually as someone sleazy and self-interested, and probably easiest recognized from Payback as my memory goes, but also appearing in Slither) has just inherited this property. He's also ten years trained at mountain climbing, and his girlfriend (Deborah Benson), too, is trained. Of course, the other three, Jonathan (Chris Lemmon) and his girlfriend Megan (Jamie Rose) and brother Daniel (Ralph Seymour) are not trained, but that's not too bad. It turns out the characters are not raving morons, the killer is not a generic evil force, nor a plain killer, finding an easy balance between being thoroughly creepy (intended, Lieberman says, as a "primitive" or "caveman" rather than an inbred psychopath) and acceptably "possible," and Fiedel's score mixed with fantastic visuals of the deep, thickly wooded forests around them (not to be confused with Terence Malick-style lingering nature shots, though I'd sure as hell like to see a Malick-directed slasher...but I don't need to wait five to ten years for it either) give it its own kind of atmosphere.
It plays with stereotypes and expectations, but not in that irritatingly obvious way that says, "Hey! I'm doing something other than what you thought! In fact the exact opposite! Nyah nyah! Isn't that cool?!" It seems more like characters and events play themselves out as they should and as you would expect--in a "real" situation, not the usual slasher one--but not without losing the spice of coincidence inherent to plotting--both fictional and non. This is not, as Lieberman has just said in the interview on the television behind me, designed as a series of murder setpieces (interesting, almost the exact thing that entered my mind as I was watching, that it ISN'T that) but rather as a reference to something more like Deliverance, yet with a more slasher-like sensibility. I'm quite pleased with it, and glad I did pick it up, despite the fact that I can usually take or leave slashers. I'm hesitant to even call it one, yet it obviously is--which I think is a good thing to say about a slasher.
*OK, this really doesn't matter, but I'm now looking at Brad Fiedel and he has Eraserhead hair. How weird. Maybe it's Morrissey hair.
I used to stumble back and forth through Best Buy's horror section looking for anything interesting I didn't own (ha! right!) until I gave up, but once in a great while some strange obscure special or collector's edition of a cult flick would suddenly (and rather inexplicably) show up and catch my eye. Once I found this very strange yellow and black cover to a movie that implied it was some strange, strange movie and probably a classic with horror audiences. Despite being rather a horror audience myself, I know there are massive (MASSIVE!) gaps in my knowledge. I got the impression from the bits of fluff that I read (possibly including the back of the DVD) that this was in the vein of (going backward) The Hills Have Eyes and (going forward) Wrong Turn. This is half-accurate, but not completely so. In looking around just prior to viewing the used copy of the two disc version I picked up, I started to see the word "slasher" sliding around. This set off vague warning bells in the back of my mind--"slasher" is not a word with which I equate quality. I'm not opposed to them, but the die-hard slasher fans tend, in my experience, to stick pretty strictly to rather formulaic, generic, simplistic and repetitive kill-based horror with no underlying anything--not even acting, scripting or basic quality necessary.
The film opens on an uncle and a nephew out hunting in the mountains, the two of them in an abandoned church making jokes (of the benign heretical variety) when a strange man appears at the door with a large machete-like knife (with serrations! eeg!) which he promptly makes use of. From here I was thinking--hey, this isn't a slasher, I see no teenag--oh. There we are, an RV (The Hills Have Eyes!) filled with five kids. Apparently they are going camping, and we have two couples and a nerdy fifth wheel with a camera. Oh dear. This doesn't look good. I smell flat characters and generic, predictable tripe. But my hopes are higher than that, at least a teensy bit, because I saw that the score I've been enjoying, a nice, moody deep synthetic score with the occasional strings and single snare drum (are these synthetic too? the drum didn't sound like it) was written by none other than Brad Fiedel, who also scored the original The Terminator (and its sequel), Fright Night, Desert Bloom, The Serpent and the Rainbow--amongst many others. The theme from The Terminator, at the least, is one of my favourites.*
And yet, here was a surprise. There's George Kennedy (he of Naked Gun, Flight of the Phoenix, and so on) as a Forest Service employee working on a bonsai tree and calming down his horse Agatha. He warns the kids (eek, more clichés, though this was only '81) and asks where they're going, and they actually have reason for where they're going--young Warren (Gregg Henry, who I've seen a thousand times in varying roles, usually as someone sleazy and self-interested, and probably easiest recognized from Payback as my memory goes, but also appearing in Slither) has just inherited this property. He's also ten years trained at mountain climbing, and his girlfriend (Deborah Benson), too, is trained. Of course, the other three, Jonathan (Chris Lemmon) and his girlfriend Megan (Jamie Rose) and brother Daniel (Ralph Seymour) are not trained, but that's not too bad. It turns out the characters are not raving morons, the killer is not a generic evil force, nor a plain killer, finding an easy balance between being thoroughly creepy (intended, Lieberman says, as a "primitive" or "caveman" rather than an inbred psychopath) and acceptably "possible," and Fiedel's score mixed with fantastic visuals of the deep, thickly wooded forests around them (not to be confused with Terence Malick-style lingering nature shots, though I'd sure as hell like to see a Malick-directed slasher...but I don't need to wait five to ten years for it either) give it its own kind of atmosphere.
It plays with stereotypes and expectations, but not in that irritatingly obvious way that says, "Hey! I'm doing something other than what you thought! In fact the exact opposite! Nyah nyah! Isn't that cool?!" It seems more like characters and events play themselves out as they should and as you would expect--in a "real" situation, not the usual slasher one--but not without losing the spice of coincidence inherent to plotting--both fictional and non. This is not, as Lieberman has just said in the interview on the television behind me, designed as a series of murder setpieces (interesting, almost the exact thing that entered my mind as I was watching, that it ISN'T that) but rather as a reference to something more like Deliverance, yet with a more slasher-like sensibility. I'm quite pleased with it, and glad I did pick it up, despite the fact that I can usually take or leave slashers. I'm hesitant to even call it one, yet it obviously is--which I think is a good thing to say about a slasher.
*OK, this really doesn't matter, but I'm now looking at Brad Fiedel and he has Eraserhead hair. How weird. Maybe it's Morrissey hair.
sparkydog16134
January 27, 2007
One of my favorite slashers, it avoids much cliche' and manages to be creepy and very atmosphere driven.
staindslaved
Super Reviewer
October 22, 2012
The quintessential hillbilly slasher film it doesn't measure up to the grander achievements in the sub-genre but it certainly has its unnerving moments and has a nice gender study element to compliment the straight forward slice and dice premise.
Kilometers Davis
August 5, 2012
"Just Before Dawn" is, at its best, a fun, if at times slow-burning, summer-slasher from the 1980's that isn't the classic "The Burning" is but is exceptional at what it set out to do while never ripping off "Bay of Blood" once.
Track this one down before summer's end.
Forget about Jason and his mother for "Just Before Dawn" is a backwoods slasher that came out the same year as "Friday The 13th" and is a better film. One of the reasons "Just Before Dawn" never garnered the fan base that the "Friday the 13th" series has is, sadly, mostly due to the lack of a hockey mask or, rather, the backstory for the villain who would later don one. It's a shame because "Just Before Dawn" has the mood and location that is essential for this sub-genre of slashers, to say nothing of the unforgettable campfire/fistful finale and the brutal murder sequences. Every cliche associated with backwoods slashers is present; however one only has to look at the year-of-release to dismiss these annoyance (the eccentric warnings from rednecks about the camper's upcoming deaths; characters that dance the idiotic with death) and sit back with a red-tipped paper or box of cold ones and enjoy - no cerebral wiring necessary.
"Just Before Dawn" is, at its best, a fun, if at times slow-burning, summer-slasher from the 1980's that isn't the classic "The Burning" is but is exceptional at what it set out to do while never ripping off "Bay of Blood" once.
Track this one down before summer's end.
May 15, 2011
A backwoods slasher like any other but something about this one stands out.. is it the music? the (very) few unexpected things? the off screen death? I can't tell you exactly but it is one of the best backwood slasher movies.. deff a MUST for slasher fans!
CACB
October 15, 2010
A group of five friends go up a mountain to go camping. They are warned by a couple of people of the surroundings to stay away from the area, but, surprise surprise, they don't listen to them and go up the mountain anyway. There, strange events start to ocurring, including the disappearance of one of them. When he is found, the four remaining are split in two groups of two. The one who found him are aware that there is something in that mountain (though they are skeptical at first), but the second don't know until they are attacked by the thing inside the forest.
Well, this film is better than your average slasher film. Slasher films are, by common, a genre that has many flawed films, and only about the 20 or 25 per cent of them are good (examples are the originals of Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc., as well as other stand alone films like Black Christmas). This film isn't terrible, but still isn't qualifyable.
To start with the plot, the plot is predictable and full of clichés, though it smartly avoids a couple. It has been done about a dozen times (kids camping in the woods, haunted by an unknown killer, etc, etc), but at least in this film they dont go into the killings right away. They first start with the camp and its surrounding. Then they try to add a little suspense, and then, when they finally get into the killings, they dont go into gory details of murder, they just happen.
This leads me to the direction of the film, which is probably the best thing about it. It isn't excellent, but still it is quite good compared to many of the other slasher films. The director in this film doesn't focus on the blood and gore as I already said, but instead tries to set a very creepy and dark atmosphere.
The acting, well, the acting isn't anything remarkable, its a little wooden in fact, but it is better than from most of the slasher films. The characters are cardboard cutouts, but again, that's not new in a slasher film. The main actress might be the best one, then her boyfriend, then maybe the other guy boyfriend of the redhead. The redhead and the other guy are the worst, along with the blonde girl they met singing. Despite this, the last three do a much more credible job than in most of the slasher remakes we see today. But again, this is not Oscar worthy.
A thing I didn't like was the killer. *WARNING: THIS PART O THE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE RUINED TO THIS MOVIE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH* The killer was a fat disigures man (or rather two) who chases the main characters through the forest. That's exactly what Jason Vorhees does, true, but Jason is much more cooler than this fat clown-looking guy. Though the fact that there's two of them kind of spices things up, but doesn't help to much with this little effective cheesy villain.
The film is better than most of the slasher films, but it isn't still a good one. The film lacks the punch of superior films like Halloween or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the villain isn't a very good one. But still, the actors do a better job than in other slasher movies, and the director does a good job at setting the mood. So at the end, the film isn't very original and is predictable, the villain is very crappy, but it is better than in most cases (sorry if its starting to get repetitive).
My recommendation: I won't say this is a film you have to stay away as much as you can, but it isn't a film you should watch either. I'll leave it to your choosing weather to watch it or not.
My score: 44%
Joining the fashion that most of you have been doing because of Halloween, I am reviewing here my first slasher film of the month. The film Just Before Dawn is a 1981 slasher film directed by Jeff Lieberman. The film basically follows the story line of many of the famous slasher films, like Friday the 13th:
A group of five friends go up a mountain to go camping. They are warned by a couple of people of the surroundings to stay away from the area, but, surprise surprise, they don't listen to them and go up the mountain anyway. There, strange events start to ocurring, including the disappearance of one of them. When he is found, the four remaining are split in two groups of two. The one who found him are aware that there is something in that mountain (though they are skeptical at first), but the second don't know until they are attacked by the thing inside the forest.
Well, this film is better than your average slasher film. Slasher films are, by common, a genre that has many flawed films, and only about the 20 or 25 per cent of them are good (examples are the originals of Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc., as well as other stand alone films like Black Christmas). This film isn't terrible, but still isn't qualifyable.
To start with the plot, the plot is predictable and full of clichés, though it smartly avoids a couple. It has been done about a dozen times (kids camping in the woods, haunted by an unknown killer, etc, etc), but at least in this film they dont go into the killings right away. They first start with the camp and its surrounding. Then they try to add a little suspense, and then, when they finally get into the killings, they dont go into gory details of murder, they just happen.
This leads me to the direction of the film, which is probably the best thing about it. It isn't excellent, but still it is quite good compared to many of the other slasher films. The director in this film doesn't focus on the blood and gore as I already said, but instead tries to set a very creepy and dark atmosphere.
The acting, well, the acting isn't anything remarkable, its a little wooden in fact, but it is better than from most of the slasher films. The characters are cardboard cutouts, but again, that's not new in a slasher film. The main actress might be the best one, then her boyfriend, then maybe the other guy boyfriend of the redhead. The redhead and the other guy are the worst, along with the blonde girl they met singing. Despite this, the last three do a much more credible job than in most of the slasher remakes we see today. But again, this is not Oscar worthy.
A thing I didn't like was the killer. *WARNING: THIS PART O THE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE RUINED TO THIS MOVIE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH* The killer was a fat disigures man (or rather two) who chases the main characters through the forest. That's exactly what Jason Vorhees does, true, but Jason is much more cooler than this fat clown-looking guy. Though the fact that there's two of them kind of spices things up, but doesn't help to much with this little effective cheesy villain.
The film is better than most of the slasher films, but it isn't still a good one. The film lacks the punch of superior films like Halloween or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the villain isn't a very good one. But still, the actors do a better job than in other slasher movies, and the director does a good job at setting the mood. So at the end, the film isn't very original and is predictable, the villain is very crappy, but it is better than in most cases (sorry if its starting to get repetitive).
My recommendation: I won't say this is a film you have to stay away as much as you can, but it isn't a film you should watch either. I'll leave it to your choosing weather to watch it or not.
My score: 44%
hereinmyhead
October 4, 2004
I saw this, as a child for the first time on cable. I have been looking for it for years to see again. Well first of all, its not nearly as good as when I was a child!!! For the slasher buff it has its moments, but for others stay away. An 80's version of Wrong Turn, the newbie is better. Neither do the job as good as Deliverance did.
