After dumping her jerk of a boyfriend, beautiful student Jenny (Kathrine Baumann) and her old friend Robert (Peter Hooten) decide to pay a visit to pal Michael (Robert Englund), who has 'dropped out' to live in a remote cabin in the mountains. The trip sees Jenny and Robert taking their relationship beyond being just good friends; unfortunately, the couple run into a pair of hillbilly rapists - Levon (James Keach) and Danker (David Pritchard) - who spoil the mood by beating Robert unconscious and attacking Jenny.
Following Deliverance and The Last House on the Left (but predating I Spit on Your Grave by three years), I expected Sunburst (AKA Slashed Dreams) to be a gritty backwoods rape/revenge movie, with Robert, Michael and Jenny using extreme violence to settle the score with Levon and Danker. But while Robert does attack the rapists in a fit of rage, the rednecks escape retribution, scurrying off into the woods before any real harm is done to them. Instead of 'an eye for an eye', the film's message appears to be 'don't dwell on the bad things in life', Jenny's eventual acceptance/dismissal of what has happened allowing her to move on.
It's well past the halfway mark before the hillbillies show up, with way too much time wasted on Jenny and Robert driving to the mountains and then hiking through the woods, the most exciting moment being when a bear eats their food. When the young couple decide to go skinny dipping, we get some welcome nudity from Baumann, but up to that point, the film is a real test of one's patience. The arrival of Danker and Levon adds a little tension, but the rape scene, when it happens, is fumbled by director James Polakof, who seems reluctant to disturb or offend the viewer, and everything that follows feels even more lacklustre. Englund - probably the main reason people will seek this film out these days - has very little screen-time and his character is a total wet blanket.
But the worst thing about the film isn't the crap ending or the dreadful pacing, but the soundtrack - a series of awful new-age folk songs by some flower child who mistakenly thinks that she is Joan Baez.
3/10.
N. B. The film's alternative title - Slashed Dreams - has got to be a desperate attempt to cash in on Englund's fame as Freddy Krueger.
