no, it's difficult because i know you could think that but the images in my head look nothing like that. Think more like Predator or vietnam movies and that get's closer.
No, if it is actually really based on the book then they based it very very loosly on it (not only a change of location, but a very different way the story unfolds and how the people get killed). I'm pretty sure the entire rhyme isn't even in the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Terror

or "Just before Dawn"

No to both BUT we are getting closer: it feels more like these movies anyhow. I think the one i'm looking for is a bit less "slasher movie" with a bit older actors.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094642/

american gothic

April fools day

no, after checking more then a 1000 movies, i'm almost ready to throw the towel in the ring :(

April fool's day ?

no, i'm starting to believe i'm looking at the wrong kind of movie. I'm also looking at slashers but i don't think it's rally a slasher. It feels like friday the 13th meets saw wrapped in a ten little indians story but more a thriller/mystery then horror/slasher...

Man why is this so hard i must have seen this movie a 100 times when i was younger...

if u remember more Indy - post here mate, I need to get a drink and a cig - will carry on looking tom as well if needed.

Have you read through this wikipedia page to see if it's any of the ones listed anywhere here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None

thanks for the help. I can only remember one scene clearly:

It's a flashback to vietnam i think. And they leave on of the platoon behind in a burning vietnamese cabin. The murderer is the soldier who was left behind and one of the victims is one of the people who left him there. The victim remembers because the murdere has stages this scene i think with puppets, but it's also a trap meant to let the victim die in the same way as how he almost died. You have a chapter like this for every victim.

It's definitely not that, has a plot twist that the OP didn't mention and takes place in a house, it's on an island, but the main setting is a big, creepy mansion.

http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=12282

"search and destroy" 1979

It takes place in 1978, with members of a small platoon of Vietmam vets in the process of being hunted down and killed. It seems that the group was ambushed during one of their missions, and in the confusion of the attack and the haste of the retreat they left an Vietnamese advisor behind. To die, so they assumed, but — you’ve caught on already? — no indeed, he did not.

Oh man i actually thought you had it but it's not the one. Damn it fits so well but it's not that one.

okies Indy - forgive me please but i stop searching for tonight, want to have a look at a few things before i go bed. Will look more tomorrow after work :)

Thanks for all the effort. I think that we should just give up. My memory is probably to foggy about it anyhow so maybe even if you find it, i might not remember. That could even be the case with search and destroy...