Blackwoods

This German-financed, low-budget thriller is undermined by a listless script and annoying slickness in the editing. The lackluster performances don't help and when all is said and done, it's really just a public-interest morality play. A flash in the pan for late-night cable viewers.

On a road-trip to meet her family, a couple get sidetracked by the residents of a small-town community who are seemingly trying to kill him, but as he spends more time in the area, he begins to see the real reason behind their actions and tries to stop them before he comes to any harm.

There's a lot to dislike here as this was a really flawed entry. One of the biggest is that it's built around one of the most insipid and utterly moronic twists in the genre (it's not the worst, but man is it up there) that basically makes the entire film completely worthless, and when combined with an irritating belief that every single action scene must be shot in slow-motion combined with a camera angle that is so blurred and out-of-focus it's still impossible to tell what's going on. There's almost no gore or even kills happening on-screen and that it's more of a mystery than anything makes it nearly impossible to get into this one and really care since nothing happens. It's got his usual flare for gorgeous scenery, but that's about it here beyond the final chase through the woods which has a rather nice amount of action to it, but it's still too little too late to save this.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity

A while back I read an interview with Uwe Boll saying how his early non-video-game-adaptation movies are better and people should watch them as well before judging him. I've done both, and I have to say Uwe Boll makes no bad calls any other straight-to-video filmmaker wouldn't either, he's just much more high-profile thanks to his video-game franchise licenses. He isn't a bad director, but he's not one of the best either. Blackwoods is a case in point. It's an entertaining, solid movie, but it has problems, namely confusing writing and an end that comes suddenly and explains everything in five minutes flat.

Blackwoods constantly refers via flashback to a horrible car crash that the main character has before the start of the movie, where a woman is accidentally killed. It constantly drops hints that 'sumthin' ain't right' with the main guy Matt, but doesn't really have any exposition till the closing minutes. While this keeps the pace brisk, it does mean that you feel a little left out of proceedings.

Also, the cast lay their 'you ain't from around here is ya boy' routine on a little thick. If Clint Howard had acted any stranger I would have started to expect Jeremy Beadle to hop out from behind a TV set during the motel segment. Given that Boll actually does a good job of developing an uneasy atmosphere for the movie, it seems unfortunate that he also got his actors to really turn up the 'weird dudes' knob. It kind of cheapens the effective direction a little.

Still, despite it being quite confusing at times, and having some fairly odd, unnecessarily nuanced acting (not bad, just really strange), Blackwoods is an entertaining film. The storyline is intriguing, and the way it's fed to you is quite gripping. Unlike Boll's House of the Dead, his other film I've seen, which is non-stop stupidity (though I hasten to add, that's good stupid not bad stupid), Blackwoods is quite intelligent and well put together. It's worth a shot, don't expect a miracle, but give it a try, you could enjoy it a lot.

I would give this movie 7/10, but when I saw the low score on imdb I made it 8/10.

Blackwoods is a very neat direct-to-video psychological thriller, in a style that was popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Movies with a lot more budget were made in this genre back then and of course these movies are better.

Although Blackwoods will never win any prizes, I don't think that's why this movie scores so bad on imdb. The box of my DVD mentions as genre Horror and I suspect that because of this, and also the photo of the ax on the cover, fans of slashers have bought this movie. And what Blackwoods is not now is an easy Friday night popcorn scary movie.

But for those looking for an entertaining film, there is a lot in return: good plot, good acting, beautifully filmed and at times quite a bit of excitement. For the enthusiast.

Neat psychological thriller about a man who has a guilty past that just won't go away.

Matt, Patrick Muldoon, goes on a trip to the country with his girlfriend, Dawn, Keeger Tracy, to meet her parents and realizes that the place where they live is where he killed a girl in a car accident some time ago. Matt starts to relive that event over and over until it drives him out of his mind.

Good use of scenery and even better use of plot and actors by director Vwe Boll of how the minds subconscious is able to bring back events that we would like to forget. Released for video but as good as most films that have theatrical runs, with good supporting efforts by Michael Pare, Samantha Farris and of course Clint Howard as the off the wall motel clerk. The movie ends a bit confusingly but if you use your freeze or slo-mo button, of your DVD or video player, you'll see what really happened to Matt.

Terrific use of and manipulating the scenes by directer Boll in which Matt is in flashback and how those scenes mesh together in the end is what makes this made for video movie as good, or even better then most psychological thrillers that you would pay as much as ten dollars to see in the movie houses.