The Final Terror is a 1983 American slasher film directed by Andrew Davis, and starring John Friedrich, Rachel Ward, Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed, Mark Metcalf, Akosua Busia, and Joe Pantoliano.

Blending elements of the survival thriller and the slasher film, the story follows a group of campers in the Northern California wilderness who are forced to fight for their lives against a backwoods, feral killer hunting them as prey.

As they are hunted by a camouflaged killer, the group uncovers a local legend about a feral woman, escaped from a mental institution, who now prowls the woods.

Principal photography took place in the fall of 1981, primarily in the Redwood Forests of northern California, as well in southern Oregon, under the working title Bump in the Night.

Weeks later, a group of campers consisting of Dennis, Margaret, Windy, Marco, Nathaniel, Boone, Eggar, Vanessa, Mike, and Melanie, arrive at the forest.

The group makes a clearing and spend the night around a bonfire telling a story about a young teenager who was raped and became insane, so she was put in a local mental institution, where she gave birth to a baby boy who was taken from her.

While searching the cabin for food and items, they find a severed wolf's head in a cabinet and are shaken before returning to the camp.

After Vanessa gets angry at the men for scaring the girls, she walks off alone to the outhouse; she screams when Mike's severed head falls onto her, and the group comes to her aid.

In the morning they go to the cabin to look for the killer, unaware that he is down in the basement with a captured Melanie, and they flee with the rafts after finding a human hand in a glass jar.

[2] Muir writes: "In the 1980s, Americans had more creature comforts, including Atari 2600s, VCRs, shopping malls, and less of a need to seek leisure outside in the woods...

[4] The original screenplay, which had the working title Bump in the Night,[5] consisted of a sparse plot about "rich boys and girls going off into the woods and getting killed.

Australian actress Rachel Ward was cast in the lead role of Margaret after Davis had seen a modeling portrait of her in Roth's office.

[14] Davis was also hired by producer Joe Roth to serve as cinematographer, billed under the pseudonym "Andreas Davidescu" to avoid problems with the filmmakers' union.

[16] Principal photography took place largely in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park,[17] surrounding Crescent City, California, and southern Oregon in September 1981,[18][19] under the working title Three Blind Mice.

However, the scene was shot without the director's permission, so Roth had to pay a fee, some of it sourced from funds intended for Davis' wedding at the time.

[29][30][31] At the time of its release, several of the film's stars had garnered recognition for other acting roles, including Hannah, who had had a major role in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982),[32] Ward, who made a critically acclaimed appearance in the miniseries The Thorn Birds,[33] and Zmed, who had been cast as a regular on the network series T. J.

"[37] Writing for The Baltimore Sun, Stephen Hunter faulted the film as it "never builds any real tension or energy, even within the limited confines of the genre...

"[36] The Palm Beach Post's Kathryn Buxton praised the film's setting and "likewise scenic cast" but added: "After her throat is cut by the slasher, Ms. Hanna is sewn miraculously back together by Ms. Ward, and she is up and walking in no time.

"[38] Terry Lawson of the Dayton Journal Herald criticized the film's plot for being derivative, adding that both Ward and Hannah "do their jobs, which is to look beautiful even when scared out of their makeup.

The only real performance in the film is rendered by John Friedrich, who does a Robert De Niro imitation that is so blatantly bad that one can only hope he intended it as parody.