Terror at Tenkiller

Terror at Tenkiller
Blu-ray cover artwork
Directed byKen Meyer
Screenplay byClaudia Meyer
Story by
  • Ken Meyer
  • Claudia Meyer
Produced byKen Meyer
Starring
CinematographySteven Wacks
Edited by
  • Ken Meyer
  • Keith Melton
Music byRobert Farrar
Production
company
United Entertainment Pictures[1]
Distributed byUnited Home Video[2]
Release date
  • February 17, 1987 (1987-02-17)
Running time
87 minutes[3][4]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40,000[5]

Terror at Tenkiller is a 1986 American slasher film directed and produced by Ken Meyer, and starring Stacey Logan, Michelle Merchant, Michael Shamus Wiles, and Kevin Meyer. Its plot follows two female college students spending their summer vacation at Lake Tenkiller in rural Oklahoma where a rash of grisly murders are occurring.

The film was produced and financed by the Tulsa-based United Entertainment Pictures, who hired documentary filmmaker Ken Meyer to direct the project; his son, actor Kevin Meyer, recruited several of his classmates from the USC School of Cinematic Arts to work on the project, including cinematographer Steven Wacks and actor Michael Shamus Wiles. Claudia Meyer, Ken's wife and Kevin's stepmother, wrote the screenplay. The film was shot entirely in Oklahoma near Lake Fort Gibson and the Fort Gibson Dam, not at the actual Tenkiller Ferry Lake where it is set.[6]

Though shot on 16 mm film, Terror at Tenkiller was originally released directly-to-video in 1987 through United Home Video, and received a subsequent DVD release, followed by a digital RiffTrax edition featuring a humorous commentary by Kevin Murphy and Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film later underwent 4K restoration before being screened in Tulsa for its 35th anniversary in October 2021. A 4K UHD Blu-ray edition of the newly-restored print was released in July 2023 by Vinegar Syndrome.

  1. ^ Stine 2003, p. 287.
  2. ^ "Movies". Calgary Herald. February 27, 1987. p. 128 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference agfa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Terror at Tenkiller". Encyclopedia.com. Cengage. Archived from the original on August 12, 2023.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference two was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Wooley 2011, p. 254.