Trivia
Although this film was successfully prosecuted as a 'video nasty' in the UK in 1984, its initial DVD release passed uncut at the '15' certificate- due to the film's ultra-fake effects and the film's overall 'cheesiness' which greatly reduce the chance of it being offensive to anyone.
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Spoilers (1)
The film was unavailable in the UK for many years owing to its inclusion on the DPP 72 list of video nasties. It was finally passed fully uncut by the BBFC and released in 2007.
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Mary Gail Artz , who plays Ingrid, later went on to become a major Hollywood casting director, and has casted such films as Halloween II, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Serendipity, House of Wax, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and many, many others. Ironically enough, she never starred in any other film besides this one.
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Composer H. Kingsley Thurber originally recorded the movies infamous cheesy theme song as a joke for director James Bryan. Bryan liked the song so much he put it in the films closing credits.
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According to James Bryan, actor Gerry Klein, who plays the guy killed in the wheelchair, was once at a screening of the movie and couldn't quit laughing during his scenes. This annoyed a woman sitting in front of him. She turned and said to him 'that's not funny, what if that was YOU in that wheelchair?!'. The irony only made Klein laugh more.
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The pink shirt Peter wears in the climax was a promotional shirt for the movie Boogievision, an earlier movie from James Bryan.
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Tom Drury, the actor who plays the Maniac, also worked as a singer. One of his songs can be heard playing in the deputies car early in the film.
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Tracking shots were filmed from the back of a truck and the chase or running action set to occur just off of roads so it could be captured by the camera riding the truck.
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The movies entire film stock was purchased for 400 dollars - quite a bargain. Before shooting director James Bryan got word that a film lab was going to recycle some old film shock that was going out of date and Bryan picked up the entire stock of unused footage, all of which this film was shot with.
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The roles of the many nameless victims of the maniac were played by various crew members or friends of the filmmakers. These murder scenes were shot on weekends prior to the principle photography.
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The original title for the films script was 'Sierra', as the story was suppose to be set in the Sierra Mountains. The films distributors would later come up with the title Don't Go in the Woods.
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The film's cameraman Hank Zinman plays the fisherman that Peter sees killed at the river.
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In the scene where Craig tells Peter, Ingrid, and Joanie the ghost story around the camp fire there's no cut away shots of Craig at all in the scene. According to director James Bryan the footage of Craig telling the story was accidentally ruined so the scene had to be cut with footage of the other cast members and Craig's voice-over.
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The entire movie was dubbed after being shot. The voice of actor Frank Millen is dubbed by director James Bryan because Millen wasn't available for the audio looping sessions.
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Despite being released in Australia under the title The Forest 2, this film has no connection with The Forest at all. In fact it was made a year prior to that film.
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Cinema Head Cheese does an audio commentary on the the double-bill DVD release along with "The Forest".
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Spoilers
Director James Bryan edited down Joanie's bloody death scene because he felt the scene got too disturbingly violent for the films tongue-in-cheek tone.
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