Group of people go camping. They get lost, hit a deer and end up more lost. The run into a girl looking for her boyfriend who's missing, and who we saw in the opening minutes come on (where a several foot high drop to a stream became a several story drop to a stream depending upon which shot you see. The film is full of mismatched shot like that). We eventually find out that the girl is possessed by some forest spirit who kills them...and loggers who show up in the coda for transgressing into the sacred wood, or some similar nonsense. Its not really worth going into, trust me. Somewhere down the road you'll that me that you've just saved 80 minutes of your life by not seeing the film and reading this review instead.
17 Reviews
Indie yawner
Leofwine_draca28 February 2018
Warning: Spoilers
DEAD WOOD is a terrible indie horror flick from Britain. It apparently took four years to get made and you can see why. As usual, a bunch of campers head off into the woods where they discover a mysterious girl before being stalked by persons unknown. This plays out as a slow moving drama with virtually no horror content whatsoever. There's no sense of menace here, just tedium with extraneous chit chat and dragged-out plotting.
indeed a dead wood
trashgang5 July 2010
An independent British horror that left me with bitter feelings. I mean, it could have been so good wasn't it for the fact that here nothing really happens. Well, there are things happening but it all starts too late and no blood flows, maybe some parts are a bit scary but it then you are too far into the movie to be surprised. It isn't really a slasher it's more about the supernatural. And indeed, dead wood is the exact word for it. Some kind of ghost appears and make people disappear into trees. The effect is quite effective and that's what people are talking about but as I said, it's bin too late. You are waiting for things to happen, for example, like the girl getting undressed, just when the boobies should be in site they cut over to another part of the story, I mean, if you tease us with nudity than give it. Also that there isn't really blood in it makes it fail too. It's sad, as so many films, it starts of pretty well but then Dead Wood becomes really a dead wood.
Horrible............Plain and SImple.....
xanther197127 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I don't even know where to begin with this movie. The other post's on here must be from part of the film company or the directors themselves , because this movie is horrible.From the acting, which is some of the worst you'll watch, even for a low budget horror film. To the story itself, a wood witch who turns people into trees?I should of known right from the start when "Milk" ,yup that's his name, climbs a tree to get "bird eggs" for them to have for breakfast. This coming from a guy who said in the beginning of this crap that he really hasn't been camping before.Or when "Webb"(really creative names btw) drowns while swimming with a naked girl,who happened to show up at their camp in the morning and cook them breakfast, all the while his (Webb) girlfriend is watching from the beach while he swims with naked girl.I mean, even in Junior High School you would never get away with that with your girlfriend. I don't know who they made this film for, but do yourself a favor and don't let it be you. You watching this film is the only "horror" you'll get from this film.
What?????? - DEAD BAD!
Systreco27 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
OK, obviously the previous comments have been written by crew or cast of the movie, they are pretty much exactly the same and they would be the ONLY people to find this load of crap entertaining! Firstly, yes this IS yet another run of the mill teen slasher/lost in the woods with no mobile phone signal piece of garbage! Secondly, there is NOTHING good to say about this movie! The acting was absolutely diabolical, I've seen better acting at a kids nativity play! And the script (if there actually was one) was just beyond belief! The previous comments say something about being scary and funny with great visual effects and music, well sorry but you have to be kidding! They also mention that there are great and sensual sex scenes! What???? The sex scenes are like something from a REALLY bad porn movie! I am angry that I wasted 90 minutes of my life on this monstrosity of a movie! 1/10 and I'm only giving 1 because zero wasn't available! NOT SCARY! NOT FUNNY AND NOT GOOD!
Don't be fooled by false reviews...
kaufman200014 July 2009
Kim Newman recommended this in the last issue of Empire. He also recommended 100 Feet so the less said about that man the better. This has precisely two moments where the director actually achieves some semblance of 'horror' and one moment where he clearly blew the budget on one special effect. These three scenes collectively last for about ten minutes of screen time and whilst some understanding of how to frighten the viewer is present they are not worth watching the film for. For the rest of the time you are left with a meandering plot that truly contains some of the worst acting I've ever witnessed and that's coming from a fan of low budget horror/indie/B-Movies for 20 years. The quality of these performances are akin to watching a play performed by an below average GCSE drama group. The acting and dialogue are so poor in fact that I wondered if it was intentional. Sadly the film has a disturbing lack of awareness and is seemingly not tongue-in-cheek in its approach. This is the first review I've ever written but it's all come to head lately as I drift from one disappointing new horror film to the next mainly due to the untrustworthy or shilling production company reviews from the IMDb user comments. It's a joke honestly.
As Macready says 'Trust is hard thing to come by these days'
As Macready says 'Trust is hard thing to come by these days'
A very disappointing movie
nelsonrbrown16 July 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I thought this movie was going to be something really scary to watch. The beginning of the movie will lead you to believe it's a truly good horror film. But as the scenes kept progressing and the actors kept getting worse and worse, I knew I didn't have to hide my eyes anymore. I could of done something better with my time,like sit and look at the wall. That would of been more exciting than this film that was that was so wrongly labeled a "horror film." It leads me to wonder where they found these actors. There is absolutely no emotion shown on their faces. Very wooden acting. Please don't waste your money renting this movie. If you want to see it,wait till it comes to television. If it ever does. Instead of it being touted on the horror film channels,it should be on "worst movie ever made!"
Mind numbingly boring
Veskanderrai19 October 2009
This movie suffers from bad acting, bad directing and bad storytelling. The moments of suspense are so scarce that when they come, you know where and when you'll be supposed to be scared.
Apart from the lack of the above, the only scary thing in this movie is the knowledge that you are wasting precious time of your life which comes to you with each second you watch of this abominable "movie".
It are movies, such as these, that give the horror genre the bad name which it has today. I suppose it is the only genre that's being used as a training ground for bad and/or beginning directors and actors.
Stay way from this and don't even touch it with a 10-foot pole. You've been warned.
Apart from the lack of the above, the only scary thing in this movie is the knowledge that you are wasting precious time of your life which comes to you with each second you watch of this abominable "movie".
It are movies, such as these, that give the horror genre the bad name which it has today. I suppose it is the only genre that's being used as a training ground for bad and/or beginning directors and actors.
Stay way from this and don't even touch it with a 10-foot pole. You've been warned.
A great example of how it can be done WRONG
KineticSeoul20 April 2010
This has got to be one of the most boring horror movie I have ever seen. Do not trust any positive reviews for this piece of crap, they either was part of making this atrocious film, was payed off(which I doubt, knowing how this was made in less than a shoe string budget), don't know what a good horror film is suppose to be and being a nuthugger cause it's a British horror flick. Just about everything about this film is so boring to the point, nothing is original, nothing is unexpected, and nothing is scary. I decided to pick this film up after seeing how it was featured in bunch of festivals that probably takes any movie no matter how bad it is. I honestly don't know how anyone can find this terrible movie overall to be even remotely entertaining. Just pass on this one, you will be doing yourself a favor, it's not only a bad horror movie, it's a pointless one with events that lead to more pointless crap. The characters in this is not only stupid, but they are so awkward they don't seem like real people what so ever, so you just don't care if they die what so ever as well. I know everyone is entitled to there own opinions, but most of the reviewers that give this movie a positive review, either was involved with this movie or involved with the people that was involved with this crap. Either that or they are tree huggers, cause the plot is about some wood witch that turns people into trees for not respecting nature or something along those line. I give it a .5 cause the ending was pretty bad to the point it's sort of funny, and it's 1.5 by me cause there is no zero to give it.
1.5/10
1.5/10
Abysmal and truly horrible effort
kannibalcorpsegrinder22 October 2014
Heading out into the woods on a camping trip, a group of friends stumble upon a young woman looking for her boyfriend and agree to help her only to stumble into a far more dangerous situation than they ever realized.
This here is truly one of the worst, most wretched straight-up horror films in the genre. The fact that this one is so amateurish and hardly ever displays any kind of professional approach and feel is one of the biggest deciding factors about this one's lousiness, as the low-budget feel to the special effects and the visuals about this one are clearly evident quite early and often throughout here. This goes to really hammer home how utterly abysmal this is during the few moments where it's actually worth watching by showing how low the budget of this is since the other rather troubling aspect of this one is the fact that it's just so dull and boring that what does happen here is barely worth caring about. The first near-hour of this one is spent with these completely unappealing people who just sort of aimlessly wander around the woods just not doing anything that makes us care about either couple here. Not only are they blatantly stupid about splitting up away from each other when they have incredibly accurate evidence of something out in the woods with them, there's also other such scenes as the women letting their boyfriends go skinny-dipping with another naked woman they just met earlier in the day, ignoring all signs of danger to hide out in the creatures' lair as well as knowingly throw themselves at someone when they're in the situation with a shapeshifter, and that's just the start of it all in here. The characters in here are just plain stupid and they're not in the slightest bit interesting, so placing them in a situation where nothing happens and when it does there's just no professional appearance to it all really works against this one. A few encounters are quite interesting, as the struggle to dodge the creature in the woods trailing after them as well as the drowning sequence in the lake while the centerpiece visual effect of a man being turned into a tree does have a rather chilling air to them in theory which seem like something that really could've been used as the basis for a much better effort than this one is for that's about all that this one has going for it.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Nudity, Violence and a mild sex scene.
This here is truly one of the worst, most wretched straight-up horror films in the genre. The fact that this one is so amateurish and hardly ever displays any kind of professional approach and feel is one of the biggest deciding factors about this one's lousiness, as the low-budget feel to the special effects and the visuals about this one are clearly evident quite early and often throughout here. This goes to really hammer home how utterly abysmal this is during the few moments where it's actually worth watching by showing how low the budget of this is since the other rather troubling aspect of this one is the fact that it's just so dull and boring that what does happen here is barely worth caring about. The first near-hour of this one is spent with these completely unappealing people who just sort of aimlessly wander around the woods just not doing anything that makes us care about either couple here. Not only are they blatantly stupid about splitting up away from each other when they have incredibly accurate evidence of something out in the woods with them, there's also other such scenes as the women letting their boyfriends go skinny-dipping with another naked woman they just met earlier in the day, ignoring all signs of danger to hide out in the creatures' lair as well as knowingly throw themselves at someone when they're in the situation with a shapeshifter, and that's just the start of it all in here. The characters in here are just plain stupid and they're not in the slightest bit interesting, so placing them in a situation where nothing happens and when it does there's just no professional appearance to it all really works against this one. A few encounters are quite interesting, as the struggle to dodge the creature in the woods trailing after them as well as the drowning sequence in the lake while the centerpiece visual effect of a man being turned into a tree does have a rather chilling air to them in theory which seem like something that really could've been used as the basis for a much better effort than this one is for that's about all that this one has going for it.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Nudity, Violence and a mild sex scene.
The rain coming down outside probably made me like this film that much more...
cecilliawhite17 April 2012
Warning: Spoilers
As with a lot of the 'less known' films I tend to watch, I usually pick days or times when the weather outside my home is in correlation with the mood of the film I'm trying to enjoy. That being said, when I watched Dead Wood, I just happened to be doing it while listening to the rain coming down outside.
Now, the DVD cover-art has a quote which reads "Sure to scare the hell out of you! -Slasherpool", but for me, this really didn't even come close to happening until the end of the film. For at least 50 min of the film (out of the entire 86 minutes) nothing except gentle plot building occurred. It was hard enough to manage to keep my eyes focused on what I was watching, especially with the rain outside making a better noise than the film. However, after that 50 min (or so) mark, the film greatly started to pick up - almost too quickly.
For a good horror film, I think that there should be some length to the entire struggle/mystery that the characters are going through. This wasn't the case, though, for Dead Wood. I also found it somewhat difficult to pick up on what was happening until near the end, which was both good and bad I suppose.
All of this being said, I gave the film a 5 out of 10, purely because A) The movie was pretty well made - just with a sub par script, and B) Because the ending finally started building intensity and recaptured my attention.
If you're looking for something to 'scare the hell' out of you, this might not be it. But if you want a film that is rather short and takes place in the middle of nowhere, then this is a good choice.
Now, the DVD cover-art has a quote which reads "Sure to scare the hell out of you! -Slasherpool", but for me, this really didn't even come close to happening until the end of the film. For at least 50 min of the film (out of the entire 86 minutes) nothing except gentle plot building occurred. It was hard enough to manage to keep my eyes focused on what I was watching, especially with the rain outside making a better noise than the film. However, after that 50 min (or so) mark, the film greatly started to pick up - almost too quickly.
For a good horror film, I think that there should be some length to the entire struggle/mystery that the characters are going through. This wasn't the case, though, for Dead Wood. I also found it somewhat difficult to pick up on what was happening until near the end, which was both good and bad I suppose.
All of this being said, I gave the film a 5 out of 10, purely because A) The movie was pretty well made - just with a sub par script, and B) Because the ending finally started building intensity and recaptured my attention.
If you're looking for something to 'scare the hell' out of you, this might not be it. But if you want a film that is rather short and takes place in the middle of nowhere, then this is a good choice.
Brilliant And Ambitious Horror Film!
rossboyask13 July 2008
I just saw this at the Phantasmagoria film festival and it was one of my two favourite films of the whole festival. It's a terrific horror film with excellent production values and some real scares in there. I was also impressed with the quality of the acting and the script as well. You really identify with the main characters and feel for them as they go through Hell in the woods. There are a few good laughs in there too including a funny and quite touching sex scene. The terrific atmosphere is cultivated with some excellent music and the imagery of the film throughout, including some quite splendid wildlife photography. There are some awesome special effects too but I don't want to spoil any of the best moments. Suffice it to say I was mightily impressed with the film, and it stands a good chance of being hailed as a cult movie. If you are a horror fan it is well worth a watch.
does what it says on the tin
killchav-17 October 2009
Warning: Spoilers
synopsis: a group of friends go to the forest to camp and are preyed upon by an evil force born from the forest.
well it does what it says on the tin. if you watch this expecting a classic then you have the wrong mindset for it. this was never meant to be a classic, this was never meant to be the godfather, just a fun little trip for the viewers. the scripting, dialogue and acting aren't very good at all but it can all be taken in fun as the film expands it's throwaway characters and the one's we're supposed to care about. this isn't done well but somehow i couldn't help but care what happened to them. the camera-work is basic at best with the director assuming a half 'last house on the left' gritty realism and half 'the Blair with project' uber realism feel. it works in places and falls short at others. saying that, it doesn't detract from the basic experience of the film. no arty, film school camera tricks here. i read in fangoria that the film was shot on 35mm and considering, it's a good transfer. colours are bright and there are only a small selection of blurry frames. the transfer is quite pleasing to the eye with a wealth of colour and brightness to feast your eyes on. i do recommend turning both the colour and brightness on your TV down to enjoy the supple tones of the transfer. the score is typically suspenseful and if i am honest quite typical of a genre film. it didn't really do much for me at all. good composure but ultimately too formulaic to bring tension. this is the kind of film which you should go into expecting nothing more than cheap thrills. if you are looking for more then i could recommend a lot of films but if you just want to watch a horror film which provides the basic needs of a horror fan then go for this. you won't remember it and you won't talk about it but in my opinion it's not a waste of 90 minutes so much as a giving away.
well it does what it says on the tin. if you watch this expecting a classic then you have the wrong mindset for it. this was never meant to be a classic, this was never meant to be the godfather, just a fun little trip for the viewers. the scripting, dialogue and acting aren't very good at all but it can all be taken in fun as the film expands it's throwaway characters and the one's we're supposed to care about. this isn't done well but somehow i couldn't help but care what happened to them. the camera-work is basic at best with the director assuming a half 'last house on the left' gritty realism and half 'the Blair with project' uber realism feel. it works in places and falls short at others. saying that, it doesn't detract from the basic experience of the film. no arty, film school camera tricks here. i read in fangoria that the film was shot on 35mm and considering, it's a good transfer. colours are bright and there are only a small selection of blurry frames. the transfer is quite pleasing to the eye with a wealth of colour and brightness to feast your eyes on. i do recommend turning both the colour and brightness on your TV down to enjoy the supple tones of the transfer. the score is typically suspenseful and if i am honest quite typical of a genre film. it didn't really do much for me at all. good composure but ultimately too formulaic to bring tension. this is the kind of film which you should go into expecting nothing more than cheap thrills. if you are looking for more then i could recommend a lot of films but if you just want to watch a horror film which provides the basic needs of a horror fan then go for this. you won't remember it and you won't talk about it but in my opinion it's not a waste of 90 minutes so much as a giving away.
Makes no sense
jordondave-2808517 August 2023
(2007) Dead Wood
HORROR
Edited, cinematography, produced, written and directed by David Bryant, Sebastian Smith (also credited as sound designer) and Richard Stiles (also credited for visual effects) directing straight to rental, which starts off like any typical horror film where it shows the first nobody's getting killed- we don't know who or what is doing it! Then it jumps to the new people centering on two new couples deciding on going camping as well, it's just one very long introduction, centering on love problems for the first hour before viewers start to discover that the killings has something to do with the forest. The ending is idiotic which contradicts whatever happened toward what the living characters said they were going to do at the beginning.
Edited, cinematography, produced, written and directed by David Bryant, Sebastian Smith (also credited as sound designer) and Richard Stiles (also credited for visual effects) directing straight to rental, which starts off like any typical horror film where it shows the first nobody's getting killed- we don't know who or what is doing it! Then it jumps to the new people centering on two new couples deciding on going camping as well, it's just one very long introduction, centering on love problems for the first hour before viewers start to discover that the killings has something to do with the forest. The ending is idiotic which contradicts whatever happened toward what the living characters said they were going to do at the beginning.
I thought the title referred to male impotence.
fedor822 September 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Four young morons go for a camping trip in the English woods. But instead of having undisturbed fun with the ol' in-out (during which they can enrich the world with even more moronic offspring), they end up becoming trees. Tolkien would have protested vehemently.
Human-tree mergers in cinema have always fascinated me. From a very young age - indeed since I was a very young tree-spotting boy - the idea of having Oriental wood-witches turn horny young couples into semi-retarded, mute pseudo-Ents had tickled my fancy like no other floral or even non-floral concept. My imagination ran wild as I pictured myself becoming a plant - much like Sean Penn has been since his birth. What would it be like just to sit there and not ever have to think or eat food (much like Nicole Ritchie)? In particular was I interested how these bored magical forest women do this with the aid of cheesy CGI. Naturally, there was no CGI when I was growing up, but then again why should this IMDb comment have any more logic than this unique little British horror flick?
The Oriental witch, played by the rather cute bad actress Nina Kwok, springs out of nowhere one day, informing the two bad-acting white couples that "her boyfriend had disappeared" and that she is cold and hungry. Someone suggests - quite foolishly! - that they call the police, but because most horror-film couples are rather brave morons, this strange notion of informing authorities of the disappearance of a person in the middle of nowhere gets quickly discarded and pooh-poohed upon by the majority. Hooray for horror-movie democracy. Apparently, Common Sense 101 and Wanting To Survive Forrest Demons 500 are courses that are never taught to horror-film couples.
One of the characters is called "Milk". Don't ask me why. My intellect is too small to comprehend the limitless depths of profundity that is to be found in every pore of this tree-based horror-fest.
Naturally, the fact that Kwok lost her entire boyfriend (all parts of him, including the only copy of the movie's script, which was stapled to his derrière) doesn't cause too much distress in our merry band of bad young actors. Soon enough, the missing boyfriend is as passé as bell-bottoms and punk music, and no-one gives him (or his obvious questionable existence) half a thought anymore. Hence it's time for the non-nerdy guy to go skinny-dipping with the grief-stricken-yet-casually-flirtatious Kwok, while his very blond girlfriend watches them with very mild contempt (bordering on disinterest). Hmm Funnily enough, one of the skinny-dips ends up with the TOTALLY UNEXPECTED drowning of the blond's beau. The blond being a movie blond, she does not suspect at all that Kwok might have had something to do with the death of her boyfriend: after all, Kwok was only a meter away from him when he was last seen alive. At this point, the other unintelligent, sex-starved couple rejoins the group, and someone yet again comes up with the utterly silly idea of leaving the forest and searching for the police. Two boyfriends are already missing, but this doesn't seem to phase our underpaid (or overpaid?) dilettante thespians. Nothing can ruin their cheerful optimism: they're happy just to be in a movie.
Eventually Kwok tires of playing games with such low-IQ campers (it's just not fun playing with your food when it's this daft), and starts turning them into trees. "Dead Wood". Get it? Dead wood. Wood is sort of dead, the bad actors are nearly all dead, hence their CGI merger with the trees means they're "dead wood". Plus, of course, the paper on which this movie's script was hurriedly written is made out of dead wood, and the ideas contained in the script itself are just as dead as the paper they were written on – which is wood-based, as I mentioned earlier.
I can well imagine that the trees aren't too happy about having to accommodate such morons into their "dead wood", but the movie - though deep as it undoubtedly is intellectually - does not address this matter at all. Kwok never asks any of the trees if they'd volunteer to let humans become part of their trunks. There is a tree-hugging environmentalist message that could have been pursued here, and I think it would have made the movie a masterpiece. Alas, as it is, we only have a brilliant movie on our hands here, but not one good enough to quite compete with the likes of "The Godfather" or "Star Wars".
Am looking forward to the sequel. "Dead Wood 2: Not Worth The Dead Paper It's Written On".
Human-tree mergers in cinema have always fascinated me. From a very young age - indeed since I was a very young tree-spotting boy - the idea of having Oriental wood-witches turn horny young couples into semi-retarded, mute pseudo-Ents had tickled my fancy like no other floral or even non-floral concept. My imagination ran wild as I pictured myself becoming a plant - much like Sean Penn has been since his birth. What would it be like just to sit there and not ever have to think or eat food (much like Nicole Ritchie)? In particular was I interested how these bored magical forest women do this with the aid of cheesy CGI. Naturally, there was no CGI when I was growing up, but then again why should this IMDb comment have any more logic than this unique little British horror flick?
The Oriental witch, played by the rather cute bad actress Nina Kwok, springs out of nowhere one day, informing the two bad-acting white couples that "her boyfriend had disappeared" and that she is cold and hungry. Someone suggests - quite foolishly! - that they call the police, but because most horror-film couples are rather brave morons, this strange notion of informing authorities of the disappearance of a person in the middle of nowhere gets quickly discarded and pooh-poohed upon by the majority. Hooray for horror-movie democracy. Apparently, Common Sense 101 and Wanting To Survive Forrest Demons 500 are courses that are never taught to horror-film couples.
One of the characters is called "Milk". Don't ask me why. My intellect is too small to comprehend the limitless depths of profundity that is to be found in every pore of this tree-based horror-fest.
Naturally, the fact that Kwok lost her entire boyfriend (all parts of him, including the only copy of the movie's script, which was stapled to his derrière) doesn't cause too much distress in our merry band of bad young actors. Soon enough, the missing boyfriend is as passé as bell-bottoms and punk music, and no-one gives him (or his obvious questionable existence) half a thought anymore. Hence it's time for the non-nerdy guy to go skinny-dipping with the grief-stricken-yet-casually-flirtatious Kwok, while his very blond girlfriend watches them with very mild contempt (bordering on disinterest). Hmm Funnily enough, one of the skinny-dips ends up with the TOTALLY UNEXPECTED drowning of the blond's beau. The blond being a movie blond, she does not suspect at all that Kwok might have had something to do with the death of her boyfriend: after all, Kwok was only a meter away from him when he was last seen alive. At this point, the other unintelligent, sex-starved couple rejoins the group, and someone yet again comes up with the utterly silly idea of leaving the forest and searching for the police. Two boyfriends are already missing, but this doesn't seem to phase our underpaid (or overpaid?) dilettante thespians. Nothing can ruin their cheerful optimism: they're happy just to be in a movie.
Eventually Kwok tires of playing games with such low-IQ campers (it's just not fun playing with your food when it's this daft), and starts turning them into trees. "Dead Wood". Get it? Dead wood. Wood is sort of dead, the bad actors are nearly all dead, hence their CGI merger with the trees means they're "dead wood". Plus, of course, the paper on which this movie's script was hurriedly written is made out of dead wood, and the ideas contained in the script itself are just as dead as the paper they were written on – which is wood-based, as I mentioned earlier.
I can well imagine that the trees aren't too happy about having to accommodate such morons into their "dead wood", but the movie - though deep as it undoubtedly is intellectually - does not address this matter at all. Kwok never asks any of the trees if they'd volunteer to let humans become part of their trunks. There is a tree-hugging environmentalist message that could have been pursued here, and I think it would have made the movie a masterpiece. Alas, as it is, we only have a brilliant movie on our hands here, but not one good enough to quite compete with the likes of "The Godfather" or "Star Wars".
Am looking forward to the sequel. "Dead Wood 2: Not Worth The Dead Paper It's Written On".
Creepy and effective British horror
cg_regan14 July 2008
Saw this at Phantasmagoria. It's an ultra-low budget British horror film about a group of young campers who get lost in the woods but thankfully don't get picked off by a man in a mask. Instead what starts out as a fairly standard slasher setup turns into a creepy and rather effective supernatural horror film. It's actually pretty scary in places too! The excellent writing and fantastic actors help a lot too as you really get to know and like the characters before they get into the story. But the real surprises in this film are the mind-blowing special effects used sparingly for maximum effect. The film is a real achievement and definitely one for horror fans to look out for.
Quietly Creepy
ralphv18 July 2015
I watched this film on cable not long ago and found it surprisingly enjoyable and diverting. Though the characters were not exactly likable they were engaging. I don't think I would have been as taken with the film had it been on the big screen; it is a claustrophobic film and that sense of claustrophobia, with the woods all about, is helped by the intimate venue, the lights low, the house quiet. The film would have benefited from a better ending, but that's a common failing in most horror films where ignorant people have deadly encounters with the unknown...even in high budget films there is a failure of the imagination, so that the unknown becomes the unknowable, usually manifested as the unfathomable. The film could have been much better, but the filmmakers took the easy way out of the corner into which they painted themselves...like so many others who lacked the strength to dream. But the film, for what it is, is not bad.
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