Synopsis
Welcome To Death Valley
A divorced mother, her young son and her new boyfriend set out on a road trip through Death Valley and run afoul of a local serial killer.
1982 Directed by Dick Richards
A divorced mother, her young son and her new boyfriend set out on a road trip through Death Valley and run afoul of a local serial killer.
Dolina smierci, Kuoleman laakso, O Vale das Sombras, Dödens dal, La Vallée de la mort, Terror mortal, Death Valley - Una Vacanza Nell'Estremo Terrore, Pesadelo No Vale da Morte, Pesadelo no Vale da Morte, 死亡谷
This is an HBO movie... no, not a made for tv movie but the kind of flick that 10 or 11 year old me would sneak into the living room to watch when my parents were asleep. Death Valley is a slasher/family thriller/nightmare road trip hodgepodge with the titular location, vibrant colors, and moody atmosphere going a long way for me... plus a young Stephen McHattie (who i love) terrorizing Paul Le Mat, Catherine Hicks, and Peter Billingsly (who is great here) is exactly the kind of late night vibes i was looking for since my nephew wanted to watch something spooky last night.
Death Valley is a solid, forgotten little early 80's slasher gem that makes the most of its suspense angle and banks on Billingsly looking like he's stuck in Westworld and McHattie like hes from the TCM family. I love revisiting this thing... super glad Scream Factory put out the blu years back.
A charming little thriller that often feels like a slasher. Solid suspense, likeable cast and an isolated desert setting filled with dread. Little Peter Billingsley (a Christmas Story) provides a great performance and adds a light hearted touch. Its very much a slasher at heart but having a child actor as the star gave it this 80s adventure feel too.
Billingsley plays Billy who is travelling across the desert with his mom and mom's new boyfriend. Along the way he witnesses the aftermath of a murder. It isn't long before the killer is hot on their trail and it's up to Billy to outsmart them!
Clunky at times and things fall apart a little at the end. Still it's an enjoyable experience and I'm glad I checked it out. Definitely makes for a good week night viewing but ain't no Friday night kinda movie if ya know what I mean.
I really dug this a lot, Ralphie from a Christmas Story, but a year earlier, rocking a pair of cowboy boots and not just shooting BB guns in the back yard, but handling some real iron. Unlike A Christmas Story, there was some father-son bonding time via montage at the beginning with Edward Herrmann, and then dad is never seen again, strange.
Some odd family dynamic choices, but I think that adds to the realism, as a child of divorce myself. You can be suddenly asked to meet a new potential step parent whether you like it or not.
Catherine Hicks, the mom from Child’s Play, in full cougar mode, wastes no time finding a new man after her divorce,…
U mean to tell me there exists a movie that starts with Ralphie from A Christmas Story being given a talk by Max from The Lost Boys about how he and the kid's mom fell in love with fictitious versions of each other and when they found out they weren't what they thought, divorce was really the only answer and none of u ever told me?
... I'm not angry, just disappointed
The annoying kid took away some of the fun of watching crazy people kill and stalk, but a nice time capsule anyway. WTF was with the chubby babysitter eating everything in sight? That's the best they could write for her, lol. Yet another reason to keep me the hell away from deserts!
A hard film to pin down and even harder to write a synopsis for without rambling a bit, this is ostensibly a child in peril flick as A Christmas Story's Peter Billingsley is menaced by Stephen McHattie's serial killer when he snoops where he shouldn't be snooping while on vacation with his mum and her new boyfriend. Set against the backdrop of Death Valley, this has a rather melodramatic thread to do with Billingsley's Billy adjusting to the "wild west" after leaving his cozy city life behind and coming to terms with the divorce of his parents, (theres a very TV Movie of the Week opener with a cameoing Edward Herrmann as a very unadventurous academic) usually by being a…
1982 In Review - January
#1
A divorced mother, her young son and her new boyfriend set out on a road trip through Death Valley and run afoul of a local serial killer.
What a strange little film to kick off my trawl through 1982. For the first twenty minutes or so it seemed like it was gonna be an overly angsty kid's movie about dealing with divorce, like Kramer Vs Kramer, but then to my surprise it ended up changing into a low brow slasher flick.
Billy (Peter Billingsley) and his recently divorced mother (Cathrine Hicks) leave New York for a vacation to California to meet up with her new boyfriend (Paul LeMat). For Billy it's hard seeing his…
On vacation in Death Valley, a young boy stumbles across a crime scene, and removes a piece of evidence that will put him in the sights of a killer.
Channel surfing as a youth, and inevitably being drawn to Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story) – I’ve seen the bathroom siege more often than I can count. Even if my familiarity with Death Valley only extended to a few minutes before or after that sequence, it stayed with me. Whenever faced with a home intruder, lock oneself in the lavatory and use a shower cap for makeshift chemistry. I always assumed the end result would make the assailant a member of Spider-Man’s rogue gallery... or at least blind him. Imagine my…
Hooptober IX, Part 27
Promise unfulfilled. A horror movie that takes place in fuckin' Death Valley? What took them so long? Is the co-villain going to be the deadly heat advisory? And this is some kind of "Duel"-esque Hollywood desert road thriller about a creeper terrorizing a mom and her kid? Wilford Brimley as the kindly sheriff? Stephen McHattie as the psycho? Even-more-off-putting-than-it-means-to-be bluray restoration cover art where young Peter Billingsley looks like a plastic doll head? Hell yes I'll invest my time in this.
It lets you down on nearly all those fronts. Too competent to be a trainwreck but it doesn't have enough momentum or ingenuity to pay off the premise. Even the thoroughly recognizable cast can't jolt…
I was indeed one of those who saw this on HBO, MonsterVision, and VHS rental. On Plex, this was the brutal VHS rip (you have even the tape lines and "ripples") with a lousy transfer, but my daughter had an interest in it due to it starring Hicks (she's a big fan of Child's Play) and Billingsley (we watch A Christmas Story every December) as mother and son visiting Death Valley, AZ with potential stepdad/father, LeMat (Puppet Master). I just always thought the use of Edward Herrmann at the very beginning (and that's it) was a bit odd since it is basically a setup in the Big City that sort or ends for him once the plane lands in Arizona...it's…
The kid is this, not the serial killer.
If ever there was a way to make you like your stepfather, this is brand new.
SLASHICS #56
60
Catherine Hicks and Peter Billingsley tear it up in this little slasher fiasco. Definitely had fun with this one. I normally don’t care for the Wild West aesthetic but it works well here with the Grand Canyon setting I think. Or maybe I just need to watch more westerns, idk. The thought of watching anything other than horror makes me groan, but I know I need to break out of that shell at some point, it’s just that horror is such a comfort food for me. Anyway, I recommend this one for slasher fans. There’s not a whole lot of slashing really, but it’s still a fun romp.