Timber Falls

When a young couple (Josh Randall and Brianna Brown) go hiking in West Virginia, they meet with a local woman named Ida (Beth Broderick) who recommends that they head along the trail to Timber Falls due to the beautiful waterfalls and gorgeous Appalachian views. Despite prior knowledge that the trail is the least frequently patrolled, Mike and Sheryl decide to follow Ida's advice and end up abducted, tortured and fighting for their lives against... oh, that would spoil the fun wouldn't it?

"Timber Falls" borrows a little bit from "Wrong Turn" (in fact, it was mistakenly marketed as "Wrong Turn 2" in Brazil), a little bit from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and a little bit from "Hostel". Unfortunately, it ends up less than the sum of its parts. The best scene in the entire movie comes in the opening segment which features a lot of blood and the rather gruesome way in which a young woman frees herself from imprisonment. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is nowhere near as bloody or horrific. With only one exception that I can think of, the camera subsequently shies away from showing most of what is happening.

The fact that it borrows from other movies isn't what causes "Timber Falls" to fail. The movie fails because the main characters aren't actually that interesting. They spend the first half of the movie making small talk or simply making out with one another, and the second half crying or shouting. You don't get much back-story either, other than some dialogue explaining that one of them is a nurse. Because of this, you can't really connect to either of them and ultimately don't care all that much about their fate.

It's a shame really because you get the feeling that director Tony Giglio has quite a lot of talent. The Romanian landscape (where the movie was actually filmed) is captured beautifully and he fully conveys the gloom of the location in which the two main characters are imprisoned.

As it is, "Timber Falls" isn't a bad movie. It just isn't a particularly great one either. The torture scenes aren't particularly interesting and there's absolutely nothing here that you haven't seen before in other horror movies of this ilk. If you've already watched "The Hills Have Eyes", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Wrong Turn" and all the other scary wilderness/torture-porn movies then this will be an okay rental until something better arrives. If not then try one of the aforementioned movies instead

Where to begin with "Timber Falls", as I honestly can't decide whether I should be harsh or mild in my user comment? On one hand, it's an admirably tense nowadays horror flick with brutal gore, lovely filming locations and identifiable main characters, but on the other hand it serves cliché after cliché and it's full of predictable twists. I liked the realism of the character drawings and for once the lead protagonists Mike and Sheryl are okay people that you actually wish to survive their ordeal, but fact remains that you've seen this exact same story dozens of times before and I can't filter out any aspect that is unique. Young couple goes hiking in a West Virginian national park (although for budgetary reasons the film is actually shot in Romania) where they ask the wrong persons for directions and end up in the torture dungeon of a deranged hillbilly family with a deformed son. What else can I add that you can't figure out by yourself? That the kidnappers are disturbed religious fanatics? Nope, that's hardly innovative either. That their deformed adolescent son is a perverted rapist with a nasty scythe for a toy? That's also not a big surprise, I guess… And yet, I would still encourage genre admirers to check "Timber Falls" out, because it's a competently made and unhinged horror flick that doesn't feature any boring moments. The performances of Josh Randall and the beautiful Brianna Brown are more than adequate and TV-starlet Beth Broderick ("Lost", "Sabrina Teenage Witch") clearly had a field day depicting the deranged backwoods bitch Ida. Oh, perhaps one thing that features here and you won't find in similar gore flicks: the ending. But I won't ruin it

All the major clichés of the genre seem to get wound up in this movie. A young couple go camping in the mountains of West Virginia and end up in the clutches of a murderous local backwoods (and somewhat backwards) family. How original can this be? Well, the answer is not very. About the only part of the standard cliché that was left out was cannibalism! It's not that the movie was a waste. It actually had quite an eye- catching opening, and the performances were surprisingly good (a judgment which may admittedly be more a factor of my own low expectations than anything.) For a while there's also a pretty fair level of suspense, and good use of the setting.

But the good is outweighed by more problematic aspects to the story. My first question revolved around why this couple even got into this situation. They were warned to stay off all but two trails. Then, when they first ran into trouble on the trail they chose (not one of the two,) why continue on. After an encounter with that first group of backwoods thugs, I think I'd have gotten out of there as fast as I could. The movie ends up going for one of the unfortunate choice to make the backwoods killer family a bunch of religious wackos, for no truly obvious reason that I could see, but crosses certainly abound in this. The movie gets increasing and graphically gory as it moves along, and some of the gore near the end comes across as silly rather than believable. It all culminated in an admittedly unexpected but also completely inexplicable (and somewhat nonsensical) very last shot before the credits begin to roll.

Granted that there are some good things involved with this, but they can't save an unoriginal, cliché-ridden piece of work.

I watched this film aware of the critical kicking it had received at the hands of the UK Press. It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it might be .It is Director Tony Giglio's mainstream debut, and you can see the films he enjoyed watching at Film School. The "Hills Have Eyes". "Deliverance", "Misery" "Friday The 13th" all have thematic or visual references .Those who have enjoyed those films will not be disappointed by this .However, therein lies the rub, in terms of originality it is 0/10, as an homage my 6/10 stands.

Aficianados will enjoy the horror staples. Brianna Brown, as toned, wavy haired blonde victim Sheryl is perfect. She screams and moans a lot, and gives us a very enjoyable white lacy underwear moment before some embarrassingly soft porn shots. Heroic boyfriend Mike, played by Josh Randall, is able to take beatings, whippings, brandings, Bear trap entrapment and various other indignities whilst still coming out at the other end as manfully as a hero should. Interestingly although this film has been caught up in the "torture porn" debate, it is Josh who is shown bare chested and writhing much more provocatively than his female heroine.

The cinematography is strong, and the mountain setting in West Virginia beautiful. Although essentially a "painting by numbers" horror plot, the story is lifted by the intelligent performance of Beth Broderick as Ida, the religious fanatic unable to carry a baby full term. One of the problems of the horror genre is that it is impossible to churn out stories each more gory, more horrifying or more titillating than what has gone before. This neither attempts , nor achieves, any of those objectives. That should not disqualify the likes of "Timber Falls" though for a picture soundly made, and well executed.

I reluctantly rented this movie after passing over it repeatedly at my local RedBox. From the DVD cover art and that fact that I've rented quite a few low budget stinkers from RedBox, gave me pause to ponder. I paid my 1.07 and brought it home thinking that I was in for another cheap digital, direct to DVD bomb (see Full Moon's "Petrified" for all time worst movie.) Maybe I'd get a couple of "Plan 9" type laughs out of Timber Falls. Boy, was I wrong!! This movie was tight and scary. Sure I've seen this type of plot line a dozen times or so, but what the hell--I love those predictable zombie movies too and will rent them religiously. Timber Falls was well crafted and moved at a brisk pace. It easily held my attention and I had only paused it for one trip to the bathroom. That says a lot, because when bored, I will usually get up multiple times from my living room couch to meander around the crib. The acting was very good and believable. There were a few scenes that I could've done without, but as a whole, the movie had me jumping up and down and wringing my hands like an old Jewish bubby that just found out her grandson married a shiksa. I highly recommend this movie and give it a huge "welcome to my vault of horror."