Review of Just Before Dawn (1981) by Eric R — 18 Mar 2012

As far as the inbred, mongoloid killers in the woods genre goes, I would have to put Just Before Dawn right at the top. Its story is pretty much the standard: A group of young friends go into the woods for some fun, and end up being hunted by these inbred murderers.

Jeff Lieberman is a very observant filmmaker, really focusing on the details of things, which actually raises the tension a lot, particularly in this film. The best example of this involves a scene were the kids are crossing over a cliff, via rope bridge.

The camera continually focuses on the immediate danger of the situation, at one point even slowly panning all the way from the bottom of the cliff up to the rope swing, showing us gravity of the situation.

The film has a lot of violence but it's not exploitative at all, and really doesn't have much gore at all. Instead, it focuses solely on creating a creepy atmosphere and it's more affective than most slashers because of it.

The mumbling, squealing pig type sounds coming from these Inbred Mongoloids is just unnerving and creepy as shit. Another rare thing for a film like this to accomplish is giving the viewer a true sense of trauma and loss; and this film really does accomplish it.

Towards the end of the film, you really feel that these events will haunt the survivor(s) for the rest of their lives, leaving them changed men/women.