Blackwoods

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.

Before inflicting HOUSE OF THE DEAD onto the world, in what the trade papers promise to be the first of several awful cinematic adaptations of video games, Uwe Boll made this cheap German-financed shot-in-British Columbia (though set in the U.S.) opus. The box makes it sound like another take on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, though only a few minutes of the movie towards the end could be considered so. The movie's more of a psychological thriller of sorts, trying hard to bring things together for a neat twist at the end, though the twist is one that's been used in several major Hollywood movies released in the past few years. It's a pretty dull and cheap affair for the most part, with a lot of unanswered questions such as that nude sequence near the end. Muldoon gives another sleepwalking performance that makes you wonder why he's a star even in the direct-to-video market. The movie's also not helped by Boll's *frequent* penchant for flashforwards (which naturally spoil some things to come), flashbacks (a number of which are not only repeated, but way too many times), and awful use of blurry slow-motion in these segments *plus* the "normal" parts of the movie! At least Clint Howard brings some welcome comic relief in his few brief scenes.

I can take all kinds of low budget bad movies, because going in expectations are low. If the movie delivers nothing, I am not disappointed because nothing was expected. On the other hand I despise low budget bad movies that manipulate the audience in unfair ways. They make you believe one thing and then cruelly switch what was depicted as reality to something that leaves you feeling totally cheated. "Blackwoods" is such a movie. The DVD case perpetuates the trick by giving no hint of the nonsense to come. In addition to the trickery, the endless flashbacks in "Blair Witch" type motion are annoying. I despise people that lie, so a movie that is less than honest is totally unacceptable. - MERK

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.

As the credits rolled at the beginning of the film, so did my stomach! The camera-work was odd to say the least--with spinning camera shots that made me feel a bit queasy. The net effect also was to make the film look really cheaply made. Unfortunately, the same insane desire to do something "arty" kept cropping up--again and again. The picture would often slow or blur as you hear LOUD music blaring at you or you see weird montages that make your brain ache and other times the camera jerked about and shook--making you wonder if the film makers were insane or having seizures! The overall effect is very sloppy.

The story idea isn't bad. A guy who is responsible for a drunk driving death is lured into the woods where he is attacked and tormented by the family of his victim. Unfortunately, however, the film is undone by crudeness and foul language--and you really don't care much about the folks as a result. In fact, EVERYONE throws out the f-bomb right and left so much that it just looked and sounded dumb. This really was handled artlessly--the writer/director Boll didn't do much to help the viewer connect with these folks. Could it be that Boll's command of the English language and culture is so poor that he thinks every American talks this way?! Another problem is that the film bounces around a lot--from the past to the present again and again. It's all pretty confusing and how this was handled was pretty confusing...and, once again, dumb.

Overall, a decent story concept that is handled so f-ing poorly that you wonder how they got f-ing funding for the f-ing project--as well as future f-ing projects. Sloppy and f-ing amateurish. And by the way, I DON'T talk this way...the film does.

A final comment--this film is currently listed on IMDb's Bottom 100 list--the 100 lowest rated films with at least 1500 votes. While I hated this film and found it offensive, I am sure that it didn't quite deserve this distinction. Perhaps if there was a Bottom 250 list, it should be included.