Following on from the success of "Friday the 13th", director Sean Cunningham's
next offering was this tale of terror and revenge in a small town. In this, Shannon Presby and Lori Loughlin star as teenage brother and sister Loren and Abby MacWilliams,
who move to the small country town of Glenby, to live with their aunt and uncle following the death of their parents.
Settling in to their new home, everything seems to go well at first, until the kids enrol at the local high school. There they quickly fall foul of the school bully, a rather unsavoury chap named Eddie Dutra (as played by a young James Spader) and his gang of delinquents. Who, not content with harassing them at school, proceed to target their uncle's property.
With the police unable to intervene without any proof, the two siblings decide to take matters into their own hands, touching off a series of like-for-like revenge attacks that culminates in a final bloody showdown during the films climax.
Also starring Tom Atkins and a young Eric Stoltz, overall this isn't a bad movie, but proves to be considerably less shocking than the video box art would have us believe. The film seems to borrow a few ideas from "Class of 1984". Indeed, James Spader's character looks very similar to the gang leader from that film, and the group of youths that follow him round could even be that gangs "country cousins". However the plot seems to move rather slowly, the violence is rather tame and too much time is spent establishing the central characters.
In many ways this came across as just a another 80's teen college flick, but is certainly worth a watch and should appeal to lovers of 80's B-movies.
