Witches in the Woods

You know in horror movies when characters mostly do that one thing they shouldn't be doing? Depending on the actors, the story and other circumstances you may be able to forgive these things ... I'd argue it is near impossible to really forgive anyone involved here.

Especially the inciting incident ... roads taken and all that. You do wonder why anyone would trust someone as obviously out of touch and clueless as the one our "group" believes in here. There is an underlying and depending on your view very well or poorly handled backstory involving one of the girls. She is also the center of many more scenes of "come on" - "are you seriously going to do that?" ... again, suspend your disblief ... because if you don't ... well it is going to be a "painful" watch. It is shot in a very good way though and you can see some merit(s) in it.

Well, for starters, lets just say that you shouldn't have too high expectations for the 2019 movie "Witches in the Woods". When I sat down to watch it here in 2020, I hadn't even heard about it before. But I liked the movie's cover, and given it being a horror movie, of course I found the time to sit down and watch it.

Now, I didn't know anything about the movie, so I had no expectations. So director Jordan Barker had every chance available to impress and entertain me. I ended up only mildly entertained, however. Yeah, this movie - while it was watchable - just wasn't a particularly outstanding horror movie.

I will say that it had every premise readily available. I mean, a remote forest, heavy snowfall, encroaching night, no means of escape. It had so much potential, but somehow writers Christopher Borrelli and David Lafontaine just failed to utilize that potential to the maximum possible outcome. And the end result was ultimately just mediocre.

The acting in the movie was good enough, taking into consideration the limitations of the script and director. But while adequate performances did count for something, it just wasn't sufficient to make up for the shortcomings of the movie.

For a horror movie, then "Witches in the Woods" was rather bland, bordering on being boring at times. There just was so little worthwhile in terms of scares and creep factor in the movie. Again, a shame, because there was so much potential within reach.

I managed to sit through the entire movie, but this is without a doubt not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. My rating of "Witches in the Woods" is a very bland and mediocre five out of ten stars.

'Witches in the Woods' is a good slasher with some thriller elements.

While it is mostly done by the book, you still get your set of absolutely despicable characters you really want to see dead, and they do, eventually.

It gets boring at times but is still watchable.

I can't really recommend it, but if you have some free time and you have nothing else to do, you can give it a try.

Jill is the lead character and the absolute worst part of this movie. The woman that acted her part did great, but her character design was irritating. Someone would tell her something that was obvious but she would rail against it. It's like someone telling her the sky is blue and she would not believe them and argue against it while looking at the blue sky.

Then people keep saying to wait for help, but the driver said they only had about two hours worth of gas left in the truck and no one knew they were out in the middle of no where in the freezing cold... Who was going to save them if they just waited? Also, the love triangle is way over done and not done well in this movie.

Anyway, it has pretty good atmosphere, but there was not even one likable character in this movie. I spent my time deciding what order they should die in from the most unlikable to the least unlikable. It did not go in the order I had hoped unfortunately.

Some young american's get stranded in the wilderness where according to legend witches lived.

So, Jill's best friend, Alison, has been the victim of some unspecified sexual assault.

Jill is like, "Hey, Alison, to get your mind off things do you fancy coming on a road trip? You will be stuck in a car for hours on-end with my overly aggressive boyfriend and his dumb mates. Well at least you know them, as two of them are implicated in your sexual assault. One of them is bringing along their new girlfriend. We haven't met her yet but she is definitely a massive bitch. Oh yeah and I am cheating on my boyfriend with one of his friends, also on the trip, but don't worry he was the one least likely to have molested you." Alison is like, "That doesn't sound like it will be awkward at all. Count me in!"

Bitch-face has just enough time to read out a pamphlet about witches in the area before they get stuck in the snow and immediately start fighting.

Not a lot happens in this film; most of the action is in the car. Not a problem as this worked with the likes of "Dead End" and "Wind Chill" Not here though.

These setups rely on you actually caring about the people in the car. Here you just can't. If this bunch of moody, opinionated, arrogant, narcissists had made it to their destination it still would have been a horror movie.

The acting, production and camera work are all very good. A fair amount of tension is built up and what little story there is twists enough to keep it interesting. The dialogue is also pretty well written and a few times it feels like sanity could prevail. But it is always evident that old alpha-male Derek can't keep his poo together for more than twenty five seconds at a time and everyone else seems intent on pushing his buttons.

A nice try with some nice ideas but it is hard to shake the feeling that everyone got what they had coming to them - even if their crime was just being really bland.