MovieChat Forums > Just Before Dawn (1981) Discussion > I was at the park where they filmed this...

I was at the park where they filmed this today


Silver Falls outside Salem, Oregon. It's a beautiful place with multiple waterfalls and lots of swimming areas. They filmed the infamous waterfall scene at the South Falls there. You unfortunately aren't allowed to swim in that spot due to "hazardous conditions", but it's clearly the spot where they filmed the scene. The hill they all roll down and everything is there. Really neat.

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Very cool.

I'd love to see that someday.

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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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No pics?


Would love to check that out.

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That is awesome it looks so beautiful in the movie I'd love to go there.

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It is quite a beautiful park. My family camped there several times when I was a kid and it was a family favorite. In fact we were camped there the summer they were filming.

At age 10 or 11, I remember poking around the trucks with "Hollywood, CA" on the side. We also checked out the church. It was cool how it was old inside and out until we looked up and saw new lumber for the rafters. There was also a large hole in one side of the roof for the cameras.

The rope bridge was strung across the river above Upper North Falls. We hiked to those falls to check it out but they weren't filming that day.

The best part was when we got to sit just a few feet behind the camera when they shot a night scene at the camp. The falling tree was there, rigged with a hinge so it could "fall" as many times as needed.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure my parents still have some slides from that camping trip, undoubtedly with a few shots of the church, etc. I'll have to scan those.

The ironic part is I haven't seen the movie. I was too young in those days and after I caught part of it on TV one afternoon years ago I couldn't find where to buy it. Today I happened to look again and the DVD is on its way!

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Amazing! I'd love to see the slides, that's really neat that you were there during the filming. I think it's a great horror film, and one of the best low-budget slashers of its era. I had never even heard of Silver Falls until after I saw this film, which, as an Oregon native, is kind of shameful. You just don't hear much about it, but it's one of the prettiest places I've ever been in this state. My friends and I went swimming there several times last summer and hiked from the lower falls up to the top, and I don't recall seeing many people out on the trails at all, even in July.

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That's great. I'd love to see those as well.

And very cool to read that kind of background info.

Thanks for posting.

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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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I found the slides and scanned them. I'm the one with the poofy hair...wait....I'm the middle of the 3 in the last picture. ;)

http://www.whiz.to/~35chuck/jbd/silver_falls_jbd.htm

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Wow. This is awesome.



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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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[deleted]

Great pics!

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I found another picture and added it to my previous link. It's of the falling tree. If you look close below the chop marks you can see the hinge.

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This is going to sound ignorant of technology but what did your parents capture those pictures with? The resolution is incredible and they look brand new, even better than screenshots from the Blu-ray of the film. Those were amazing to view.

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My mom had a pretty nice (for the time) Minolta 35mm camera with a decent lens. The pictures were developed into slides which are now 35 years old. I scanned them with a cheap USB slide scanner.

Thanks for the comments.

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Damn striaght, gorgeous photography.

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