- Four friends camping in the woods inadvertently stumble upon the domain of a maniacal killer.
- Four young campers, Craig, Peter, Ingrid and Joanie, back-pack through the mountains for a relaxing weekend in the wilderness. They are out camping in broad daylight, while someone else is killing tourists in the woods. Craig warns the others not to go into the woods alone. The hillsides are crawling with fat women huffing up hillsides, nerdy bird-watchers, and young couples. Most of whom meet gruesome ends at the hands of a deranged and growling back-woodsman with a sharp spike - who announces his presence by shaking the nearest branch and whooping. The 'happy' campers don't see a man and his wife being chucked off a cliff whilst they splash about in the river below. They enter a forest which becomes denser and darker as they progress. Peter and Ingrid fear that they are lost. Something large suddenly comes lunging forward with a gleaming machete. Craig slips dead to the ground as the machete cuts him up. Peter and the others flee screaming into the forest. The rest of the day and terrifying night is spent running and hiding from the maniac murderer who is constantly in pursuit. Meanwhile the local sheriff and his deputy decide they should start to investigate some of those disappearances.—Sujit R. Varma
- A young woman runs through a forest, screaming and crying, until she trips in a creek. She is killed by an unseen person.
Meanwhile, four teenagers named Craig (James P. Hayden), Ingrid (Mary Gale Artz), Joanie (Angie Brown), and Peter (Jack McClelland) hike up a mountain trail.
In another part of the woods, a man using binoculars hears a rustling noise as something flies from the bushes and slices off his arm.
Nearing the top of the mountain, Craig warns his friends to avoid danger by never going into the woods alone.
At the bottom of a waterfall, a tourist named Dale climbs the cliffs to photograph the scenery, leaving his mother behind on the trail below. An unseen killer strangles and stabs the two sightseers, and throws Dale's bloody body over the rocks.
The hikers set up camp for the night near a lake.
In town, police Deputy Benson (David Barth) tells the county sheriff (Ken Carter), who is playing golf in his office, that someone has reported Dale missing.
After dark, Craig tells his friends a story about a killer who lives in the woods and preys on lonesome campers.
While embracing her lover, Dick, inside a pink Volkswagen van parked in the forest, a woman named Cherry becomes frightened by noises. Gun in hand, Dick gets out to investigate, and is attacked. The killer pushes the van down the hill, with Cherry inside, and the vehicle explodes.
The next morning, a nightmare startles Peter awake, and the group continues on their hike.
At a local airfield, the fat Sheriff hires a biplane with a pilot and conducts an unsuccessful aerial inspection of the forest, searching for Dale.
In a thicket, an artist paints the landscape while her toddler daughter plays in a baby swing nearby. The killer (Tom Drury), wearing a furry sleeve and animal skins, suddenly stabs the woman and kidnaps her child.
While separated from his friends, Peter is frightened by the rustling sounds made by a passing hiker. When he yells for help, his friends tease him, and Peter, embarrassed, goes into the brush alone. That night, another young couple is brutally stabbed to death in their sleeping bags.
The next morning, Ingrid is worried about why Peter has not returned. Later, Peter looms in the trees and watches as his friends cavort in the river. From his vantage point, he sees a dirty, fur-covered man murder a nearby fisherman. Peter runs away, and the killer chases him.
That afternoon, Craig hangs Joanie's sleeping bag from a tree branch high above the ground, with Joanie inside. Suddenly, the killer jumps from the bushes and stabs Craig. Joanie breaks free from her sleeping bag and escapes into the woods.
Sometime later, Peter returns to camp, where he finds Ingrid in distress. The pair embrace before starting their trek out of the forest. They encounter an empty cabin and search for food, but instead find Craig's body wrapped in a plastic sheet. When they hear footsteps approaching, Peter stabs the intruder with a large stick before he realizes the man is an innocent hiker. As Peter apologizes for his mistake, the killer jabs another spear-like stick into the hiker's body and throws sharp objects at Ingrid. Peter and Ingrid run toward the river for safety. Meanwhile, Joanie finds the body of the murdered artist.
The next morning, Peter and Ingrid find their way out of the woods and into town. Ingrid is admitted to the hospital for blood loss, and the Sheriff and Deputy Benson plan to search the forest for the "wild man" murderer. Ingrid's attending physician, Dr. Maggie, joins the officers and expresses concern over Peter's obsession with Joanie, who remains missing in the forest.
That afternoon, Peter runs back toward the mountain. Desperate for food and water, Joanie finds the cabin, where the killer slashes her to death with a knife.
Since the National Guard denied the Sheriff the use of a helicopter, the police gather a large posse of helpers to conduct their inspection of the forest on foot. The Sheriff goes off on his own into the woods and finds the cabin, and he comes to realizes that this is where the killer lives and has been killing campers who hike too close to his home. After hours of searching in the woods, the Sheriff meets up with his team and they discover one of the killer's knives and six corpses, including Joanie at and around the cabin. Meanwhile, Dr. Maggie brings Ingrid to the search site with the hope of using her to find Peter.
At dusk, the killer decapitates a man rolling through the forest in a wheelchair, while Ingrid steals the knife and runs into the woods. Despite Dr. Maggie's anxiety over Ingrid's whereabouts, the sheriff orders the search party to go home and sleep.
The next day, Ingrid finds Peter and the killer fighting on a hillside. After the murderer pushes Peter down the slope, Peter removes his shirt and leaves it in the bushes to trick the killer while he hides nearby. Peter jumps from behind the trees and stabs the killer in the arm with a large branch. Ingrid hugs Peter, but the killer stands up and attacks again. The two friends repeatedly stab him in the chest until he dies. The Sheriff and his search party hear the yells and approach the scene. Peter and Ingrid wrap themselves in blankets and walk back down the mountain.
Meanwhile in the final scene, the abducted little girl sits alone in the woods, playing with a large knife.
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