Terror at Tenkiller
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
In rural Oklahoma, under the cover of night, a marina worker named Tor murders Denise, a local waitress, by slitting her throat, then dumps her body in Lake Tenkiller.
The next day, a pair of co-eds, Leslie and Janna, head to Janna's summer home near Lake Tenkiller for summer break, and to get away from Leslie's abusive fiancé, Josh. At the lake, the two get summer jobs at the diner where Denise worked during previous summers. They meet Tor, who takes an instant liking to Leslie. Shortly after Leslie and Janna's arrival, Tor stabs another waitress, Debbie, to death in a hot tub. He also knifes and dismembers his lecherous boss, Preacher, outside of Janna's place, after catching him spying on the women. After a while, both Leslie and Janna grow to trust and like Tor and offer him to come to their cabin for a beer. By this time, the two women have received threatening voicemails on their cabin's phone and assume it's Josh. They pay little mind to it and continue life as usual. Later on, Janna goes out to tan on the dock while Leslie is working the closing shift alone at the diner. Tor visits Janna and Leslie's cabin for a beer and murders Janna by stabbing her in the back as she's washing her hair. Meanwhile, Josh is looking at maps, making phone calls, and chain smoking presumably trying to locate Leslie.
When Leslie returns home from work, she finds Janna's body and believes that it was Josh who killed her. Tor consoles Leslie and soon plays a harmonica and admits that he was the one who killed Janna because he believed that she was a corrupting influence on Leslie. Tor then begins to tell her how much he loves her. Leslie runs off into the wilderness after slashing him across the face with a car key while he professes his love for her. While chasing Leslie, Tor hears Josh's car pull up, and murders him by slashing his throat, leaving his corpse propped up in a room for Leslie to find when she returns to the house. Knocking Leslie out when she finds Josh's body, Tor places her in his boat and starts rowing across the lake, but is knocked overboard and seemingly drowns when Leslie awakens and swims to shore. Narration by Leslie comments that the police were never able to discern who her attacker really was or where he came from. In the last shot of the film, Tor is shown leaping out of the water and the image freezes as the credits roll.

Review: One of the worst films EVER made!.
Tere is truly not one redeemable aspect of this film, despite it's distinctive 80's feel.
The acting is dull and the script is even duller.You wait forever for anything to happen and then nothing really does.
You can make a better movie at your home with an old VHS-C cam.It plays out like a grainy, 80's Lifetime drama movie with barely a conflict or one good use of dialog.
for a movie that has so much dialog, it would be nice f it was actually decent.
The actresses look about 45 and are about as stilted as can be.The final 20 minutes bring some very small rays of cheesy light to the proceedings, but very little.
Even the finale plays out flat as a pancake, and don't forget the awful final voice over from the actress at the end before...oh, well, you'll be able to predict what happens anyway..
Slasher fans, avoid it!.
The most interesting thing about this film was the VHS cover - a girl with huge breasts in a swamp.
Terror at Tenkiller started off looking promising, with the right mood for a slasher film and cool 80's synth music.
It even had plenty of breast shots, in fact there was loads of flesh on display.
But it was just soooooo boring!
It played out like a soap opera rather than a slasher film, and I had to listen to endless talking between the two girls about how one of them should leave her boyfriend and stand up for herself...etc.
The gore is virtually non-existent and what we do get is done very poorly.
When one of the girls is killed, we see the knife puncture her skin, then bizarrely the rest of the stabbing isn't even shown.
The pace is as slow as a tortoise and it doesn't take long before you just want the film to end.
Slasher fans should stay away.
I know what I'm talking about as I've seen loads of slashers and this one sadly falls into the "bore-fest" category.
Watch "The Forest" or "Don't Go In The Woods" instead - those films at least have some entertainment value..
This movie was not my favorite, but I did enjoy watching it.
The plot in the movie was like any normal situation when there is a girl (I forgot the names) that is having difficulty with her boyfriend and her best friend asks her to spend some time with her camping.
This reminds me of "Friday the 13th" when all the sudden there is a killer at large and things start to happen to people.
I felt sorry for what happened to the girls friend because her friend was the strong hold in the movie that brought it up and kept it interesting.
Her friend the girl that had the problems just seemed like this weak airhead that couldn't make up her mind what she wanted to do, should she follow her best friends advice and get away from the creep or should she just kiss and forgive each time her boyfriend acted like a jerk.
I wanted to see her be stronger in this movie.
The jerk for a boyfriend suddenly finds the girl and later on during the movie he deserves what he gets.
he should have just left her alone for awhile.
The killings were fake and senseless but what do you expect with a low-budget movie like this one.
It wasn't the greatest, but I at least give it a 5..
a killer is loose at a beautiful lake in the summer..
This is a low-budget slasher flick, hardly worth watching except for the splendid performance from co-star Dale Buckmaster.
Outside his brief acting career, Buckmaster is a world-famous accounting professor as well as an excellent amateur golfer.
He steals the show from the lead actors with his amazing portrait of a low-life sleaze-ball who gets what he deserves in the end -- a grizzly death.
I suspect his accounting students cheered at his demise!
But the rest of the cast is just awful.
The young girls and the crazy killer.
I don't want to spoil the ending, but it is no surprise to learn that there is a killer loose in this summer community besides the lake.
Too bad Buckmaster didn't get a sex scene with the young honeys.
Instead, they killed him off.
Our loss.
Now that would have been something to behold!.
EXTREMELY boring....
This has to be one of the most boring slashers I have ever seen.
Nothing happens...
and when it does it's so slow and totally without enthusiasm, from the makers side.
We have seen the story a 100 times, the acting is so bad it's not even funny, there's hardly any effects and the kills are uninspired.
Even Oasis of the Zombies is more "fun" to watch than this one...
and THAT says a LOT about Terror at Tenkiller!
Then there's that music...
it's so flat and (surprise, surprise) boring.
It takes the suspense out of any situation.
Not good...I would not recommend this flick to my worst enemy.
Watch paint dry instead...
that's a kick in the head, compared to this c***!.
Completely without suspense.
There's no mystery or suspense in this film at all, the characters are utterly vapid, and Ye Gods!
but the music has to be the worst I have EVER heard in a film.
The guy who is somehow supposed to come off as an attractive psycho is ugly as sin...It's hard to believe this movie was ever even released in VHS.
It seems as though it may have been scriptless.
I highly suggest watching the Rifftrax version of this, if you want to see it at all - it's the only way it will be tolerable.
Very, very cheesy ending, too.
(Note: The above reviewer who calls the female lead 'plump' must be hallucinating - she is just another anorexic looking 80's chick!).
And the scene dies of neglect..
Rifftrax Review: 9 out of 10: Bad, slow films where nothing happens have stumped the boys before.
(The Beast of Yucca Flats, Robot Monster) but they really bring their A-game here.
The riffing is on point and upbeat.
They really seem to be enjoying themselves.
They perform a miracle and make Terror at Tenkiller actually watchable.Terror at Tenkiller: 1 out of 10: A woman on the run from her controlling boyfriend hides out in a cabin with a friend.
But local girls are disappearing and they could be next.The Good: Well it made for a surprisingly well done Rifftrax track.
Also, it gave an acting start to Michael Shamus Wiles who went on to become a solid working actor (He, like everyone else, is awful in this film.) The Bad: Good lord where to start.
Do you like to watch woman talk on the phone?
Do like endless discussions about nothing?
How about panning shots of an unremarkable lake?
Scenes that go on a least a minute after they were supposed to?There is no mystery to who the killer is.
The killer is one of the five characters in the movie.
He has no motivation, no one-liners, no hockey mask or hook arm.
Just a bro with a few screws loose.
There is also no terror, suspense, or horror to be found.
Well except for the realization that there are forty minutes to go and the characters are taking yet another nap.
The Ugly: Why do we watch slasher films?
Is it to see two women discuss their relationship problems in front of wood paneling?
Or is it for the ye olde sex and violence.
Well, I hope you're a fan of the former.
The only nudity is an accidental flash from lead Stacy Logan clearly caused by the full-screen transfer and the violence is both bloodless and incompetent.
In Conclusion: I thought The Final Terror was the nadir of eighties slasher films but Terror at Tenkiller is in a whole other category.
It is like one of those seventies search for Bigfoot films where they spend seventy minutes in a swamp and never actually find Bigfoot..
Tedium at Tenkiller.
I watched Terror at Tenkiller yesterday and made it through the whole flick.
I had seen it before years ago, but couldn't remember a thing about it.
Needless to say, it's pretty forgettable.
The main female character is a bit on the plump side, and she quickly shows off her assets by taking a shower after a swim (Too bad the lighting is pretty dismal and she's the kinda girl that wears panties under her swimsuit) Needless to say the shot of her getting out of the pool confirms that this chick has got some junk in the trunk.
A rare occurrence in most movies who's producers seem to be convinced all men enjoy looking at anorexic women with boob-jobs.
At this point I still had high hopes.Once again the have an example of characters that are supposed to be in school, and still under their parents wing, but look to be pushing or over 30.
The leads girlfriend in the flick looks about 31 (although I must admit she keeps in shape as she spends ample time in a bikini) Anywho, the acting is pretty stiff, but not terrible (Except for maybe Thor), that's the best I can say about the rest of the movie.The quality of the picture is pretty dismal throughout, with the ending being almost unwatchable because it was filmed outside in the dark, the few effects are for the most part non-effective (except one involving poor ol Preacher).
The story itself make no sense, and the scares are literally non-existent in spite of several attempt to try and produce a jolt.
Attempts at suspense fall flat.
There is big hair though and to further confirm the fact this flick was made in the 80's, has a soundtrack that was almost surely made entirely on one of those big ass sampler keyboards you used to play around with that were on display when you first walked into Sears circa 1984..
80's American trash at its finest.
I love good BAD movies and it don't get much better than this 80's gem.
Shot in Oklahoma in the mid 1980's everything about this flick is a clusterF...and I love it.
The overacting and super dumb characters is something I could watch and be entertained with for about 3 more hours than this just over an hour film.
From the cover you'd think this baby was filled with action and suspense, wrong, its light on kill scenes and filled with either boring or brilliant scenes depending on how yer looking at this picture.
Bottom line here is, this is a funny riot.
Its a nice escape back to the 80's when straight to video horror films were all the rage...
and even though its on DVD the transfer looks like it was taken directly from a VHS master, so stick some black tape over the DVD player display and its like you just popped this baby out of the big box into the VCR..
Still good fun....
....only cuz I once lived around where it was filmed.
I went to the university you see in the beginning.
After watching it one evening...my friends and I sat out on a day of finding where it was filmed.
It was not filmed at Lake Tenkiller.
Anyway...on to the film..It was bad....but not *that* bad.
Like someone said before, I have seen worse.
I consider myself a horror movie nut, and this is as cheesy as most of the other films to come out of the 80s.I don't know if I'd recommend this movie to anyone outside of Oklahoma...but I do recommend it to my friends who have lived or live in the Tahlequah area...
Not the greatest, but there is worse....
This movie was pretty shoddily made and didn't have such great acting.
The legend behind the actual lake was somewhat original but didn't leave me with that feeling, y'know?
The characters which should've been main were developed, though, and there was a slight bit of suspense in the air.
The ending was lame but the rest of the movie more than made up for it.
It was extremely boring to watch some certain things and the fact that the girl had been a swimmer...
gee, what a coincidence.
The last chase in a lake!
Wow!
This gets a five for some certain scenes (one of which contain a mini hacksaw and some guy's arm...).
Mostly a lot of talk....
And I mean that literally!
Jana and Leslie decide to head up to Jana's father's cabin in order to get Leslie away from her extremely possessive jerk of a boyfriend.
Mysterious murders begin plaguing the town, and Leslie and Jana become the next targets!
As good as that may sound, TERROR AT TENKILLER has one major problem - It's way too talky!
Not a lot really happens until the final act when Leslie faces off with the killer.The acting is pretty atrocious, and borders on bad soap opera acting (Port Charles, anyone?) Also, there is a scene with Jana when she is changing clothes that shows a different actress in her spot with bigger boobs doing the nude scene!
I'm not kidding.
Ed Wood would've been proud.Despite everything I just mentioned, TERROR AT TENKILLER still retains some 80s trash charm.
It's good for one watch, but that's it.
A true cure for insomniacs everywhere..
Objectively terrible, but it just has a good nostalgic feel to it..
I saw this movie a very long time ago, maybe 1988-1990 when I was pretty young and didn't think it was terrible since at that point I also thought that NES had great realistic graphics and comic book characters stay dead.
Recently though I tumbled on the Rifftrax version of the film and I thoroughly enjoyed the treatment they gave the movie.
I also got a wave of nostalgia and loss as I viewed the film since it now seems otherworldly.
It brought me back to the time when the majority of families had the time and money to travel during the summer or have a lake cabin or family retreat or spend time at a lodge to escape the hustle and bustle.
Granted I didn't have the same hangups as people in the film had to deal with being unceremoniously murdered but hey, most people who didn't live near Tenkiller or Crytal Lake didn't really have to worry too much about that.
Sure the movie was boring, and was badly made even for straight to video standards but despite all that I still enjoy watching it from time to time.
I also find myself perusing websites dealing with cabin rentals.
Terror at Tenkiller really did make me want to head out to a nice cabin in the woods near a lake.
No other slasher has made me dwell on that..
Dull as dishwater slasher clunker.
Loaded with lots of tedious talk, plodding along at a glacial pace that's slower than a snail on downers, and utterly bereft of any suspense or spooky atmosphere, this excruciatingly drab and uneventful slice'n'dice dud tells the decidedly less than riveting and stirring story of mousy Leslie (busty knockout Stacey Logan) and her much more feisty gal pal Janna (slim and attractive Michele Merchant, who at least brings some zing to her part), a pair of college coeds who go on vacation at a remote cabin in the woods next to a lake.
Things go terribly awry when a dangerous maniac shows up and starts bumping folks off.
Writer Claudia Meyer and director Ken Meyer totally fumble the ball by strictly adhering to the old adage that "talk is cheap": There are way too many lengthy scenes of folks yakking up an agonizingly boring storm in between the infrequent and flatly staged murder set pieces which to make matters worse deliver precious little in the way of either thrills or gore.
The murky and pedestrian cinematography, a frustratingly inconclusive "it ain't over yet!" sequel set-up non-ending, and the droning synthesizer score add further abject insult to already appalling injury.
On the plus side, the two female leads do look mighty tasty in bathing suits and the rustic lakeside scenery likewise looks pretty.
A real snorefest..
First-Ever Wellness Slasher.
Student Leslie escapes from her abusive boyfriend to spent her summer vacation in a cabin at Lake Tenkiller with her best friend Janna.
Upon arrival Leslie is immediately drawn into the relaxing environment with a little help from Janna, who constantly reminds Leslie to take it easy.
In between napping, resting and sleeping in late both girls find the time to flirt with mystery hunk Tor who appears to show interest in Leslie.
When threatening phone calls interrupt the girls dreamy vacation things turn from sweet to sour: a killer is on the loose and soon enough the two Students are in mortal danger.
Cheesy but charming mid-80s direct-to-video Z-grade slow burning slasher that is impossible to hate.
Dumb but sympathetic characters, soothing Casio soundtrack, brief nudity and gore, one nightmare and one hell of an ending.
Grab some popcorn and enjoy the ride, because Terror at Tenkiller will be the highlight of your bad movie night.
I'll promise.