TERROR AT TENKILLER - Explaining a preference for 'Terror At Tenkiller' is like trying to decode one of those dreams that sticks with you for days even though nothing happens. Outwardly a regional slasher, it's more realistically the tale of Janna and Leslie's lakeside vacation, where r&r seems based on long conversations about Leslie's abusive boyfriend. It's freakishly uneventful. Given a true piece of wretched sorcery like 'The Last Slumber Party', I'm pretty sure I could sit down and enumerate all the cinematic slurs that give it its power, but 'Terror At Tenkiller' is way more elusive for not being as egregiously bad. The magic hides somewhere behind / within loud eighties decor, cheapshit diner interiors, FM radio that seems weirdly invasive, the shivery synth soundtrack, the endless greenery, secluded and shimmery. The camerawork is not very dynamic, but a slight tendency towards long shots sometimes spirits up the feeling of a watching presence. A dream sequence does its usual work, but then a casual dismemberment seems even more unreal - if it'd packed more violence, 'Terror At Tenkiller' might've been the first chill-out gore movie. A melodramatic rock number plays over and over and feels slightly desperate, as if reaching out from its eighties hinterland in an effort to pull us back there; the world of 'Terror At Tenkiller' is lonely. Soporific narration edges in and out - "they've found another body, its parts washed up by the lake" - again, so deadpan, so languid, like notes to self from a dream. Opportunistic use of local legend feels more resonant than it is. At one point, someone just sits and stares at the rain - that kind of thing needs to happen more often in slasher flicks. Finally, what do you do when you're standing at the kitchen sink in nothing but your bikini, washing your hair in front of someone you don't actually know that well, and they start to play the harmonica? Again, as with virtually all of the questions this film poses, I have no answers. Whilst it seems fairly obvious that 'Terror At Tenkiller' is a misfire and that any enigmatic qualities it possesses are mostly accidental, there are enough self-conscious stabs at artiness and mood (shots of a lone boatmen in silhouette at sundown, a spiderweb superposed over a killer's face) to make me fantasise that it might've all been conceived of as a deliberate tone poem. Bela Tarr, hurry up and make that slasher! I think what I'm taking away from this bit of self-analysis is that I like movies which just don't have all that much going on. Well, there you go!
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