Same concept, different country
Quite too many nowadays horror movies seem to revolve on friends or colleagues going into the woods for camping and/or team building activities but end up encountering 'something' evil (and mostly unseen) that gradually thins out the group's original number. This film is the Norwegian attempt at making a sinister backwoods mystery thriller. "Villmark", which is a so much cooler sounding title than the boring international title "Dark Woods", does benefice from a more ominous atmosphere and gloomier filming locations than most films in this trend, but eventually the lack of excitement reduces it yet another mildly disappointing genre effort. The script (too) patiently takes the time to introduce the characters and allow the camera to atmospherically swift through the eerie Kaupanger forests. More particularly the sober lake in the middle of the nearly impenetrable woods is impressively illustrated as the sixth main character in the story. The slow approach results in a handful of powerfully tense and creepy moments, but the film sadly fails to deliver REAL horror. The characters are slightly more likable than your average dim-witted American teen camper, but still they make one too many stupid decision when in peril and they stick around for far too long in an obviously life-threatening place. No matter how badly you want to work for a wealthy TV-producer, if you stumble upon a random corpse in a lake or become tied up over an ant-hill, you get the hell out of the woods! The arrogant and cocky producer Gunnar is working on a new reality-TV formula and engages four of his docile employees to test the idea and scout the locations. Gunnar turns out to be a sadist and manipulating dictator and even forbids the others to call the police when they discover the corpse of a drowned woman in the lake. But the woman's death wasn't accidental, as something malignant seems to dwell the lake area ever since a German army plane crashed down there during the War. The grim photography and unsettling musical score are clearly the biggest trumps "Villmark" has to offer, as the story and especially the frights are extremely mundane and unspectacular. The climax sequences try really hard to be intellectual and innovating, but it's not likely to impress anyone with a slight bit of horror experience. The comparisons with "Blair Witch Project" and "The Evil Dead" don't make too much sense, except of course for the forestry setting. There are, thankfully, no shaky camera movements but regrettably also no gory make-up effects.
