En lo profundo del bosque

This "film" should be presented at all levels of film courses especially the scripting ones because it has so many flaws in plot and lacks so many parts of a feature film that one can hardly imagine better tool for explaining what should the story for the movie be like.I don't understand that high ranking it got and some comments about other levels of depths of the story made me laughing loud.After first 20 minutes I was angry at myself because I picked the film for my friends but then I was enjoying every illogical turn of the plot, dialogue and acting of characters under given circumstances just for fun.I have no doubt that had Monty Python been still in action they wouldn't let this one pass unnoticed-one of the most absurd charcters was the policeman/detective -when he first appeared on screen -just what was this? At the end one of my friends added "and now there will be a shot on a raven and finish" and after it happened just that we laughed through the credits maybe trying to forget how dull and boring this french "masterpiece" was.

This is a pretty odd little French slasher, that is more concerned about creating an artistic and dark atmosphere than telling a story.

You could say that this movie is taking a bit of a more artistic approach to the genre but unfortunately this doesn't exactly make the movie very interesting or exciting to watch. It does a horrible job at building up- and handling its tension and all of its other horror ingredients.

The film-makers had probably seen a couple of slashers but it doesn't feel like they understood the genre as well. They thought that it was enough to just have a dark atmosphere, throughout the entire movie but this dark atmosphere actually starts to work against the movie. All of the killings are way too dark for instance and it makes it hard to tell what is exactly going on at time. The darkness also ensures that the movie feels pretty tame with its gore, though with a bit more light the movie still could had been a gore-fest, since it has some pretty gruesome killings in it actually.

The story in its core is pretty standard but it loves to see itself as something clever and original. Not that the movie feels pretentious but it's just so that the average movie watcher will find very little original and surprises in this movie, no matter how hard the movie tries at times. You also really won't feel involved with the story at all, or with any of the characters that are in it.

Best thing I can say about the movie is that I didn't hated watching it. I therefore am also going to be quite mild with my rating but still it really isn't a movie that is worth checking out.

5/10

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(*1/2 out of *****) This goes to show that even the French put out some serious garbage in the world of film from time to time. This one, for example, is horrid. The interesting (albeit derivative) premise, the spooky setting, and the cinematography are all quite good, but, unfortunately, the whole thing falls apart real fast under its own incomprehensible pretensions.

A group of attractive, young actors travel to an old mansion way out in the country to perform for an eccentric millionaire and his weird, mute son. The woods surrounding the mansion just happen to be the hunting ground for a serial rapist/killer who targets young girls. But, forget all about that, because, as soon as the good-looking group gets to the old guy's house, odd characters start popping up and bizarre things start happening -- you know, the usual David Lynch/Dario Argento kind of stuff -- except Delphlanque doesn't have an ounce of the artistic mastery or the subtlety to pull any of it off. Character motivations, most of the plotting, the dialogue (some of which, granted, could be the fault of American dubbing) -- is some of the worst I've ever encountered in a movie like this. In one scene, for example, everyone is sound asleep except for the main female star (Clotilde Courau), who is wandering through the mansion by herself. So, she enters one room and suddenly finds all of her friends dancing real slow and suggestively with each other, including her girlfriend. The scene ends and everyone acts regularly, as if nothing happened -- suddenly, they're all just wide awake and dancing to loud music! Okay, whatever, sure! And then, in the next scene -- after being warned by a (typically weird) police detective (who just happens to walk into the room) that a killer is on the loose -- they're all suddenly outside and walking around through the woods after midnight!

The story tries to follow the trace of a murder mystery, but it takes way too many irritating turns into contrived Lynchian territory (in an early scene, the young boy stabs his own hand with a fork at the dinner table, and, after the father explains that he always does that, the guests are like, `Hm, well, how 'bout that -- so, when do you think we're gonna get paid?' and stuff like that.)

There are some gory murders and a couple steamy sex scenes, but there are also loooong scenes of characters walking up and down stairs and through dark rooms. And, I swear to God, everyone pauses for about 30 seconds before responding to each other in this maddening mess -- I guess that helps stretch what could have been a 45-minute movie into an hour and a half.

Do not be fooled by anyone who tries telling you that this movie is as good as (or, God forbid, better than) a typical Argento flick, because it is not. In spite of its professional camera work and some hints of creativity here and there in the direction, this turkey is no better than any early-'80s, American slasher flick.

Lowlight: In a painfully forced attempt to misdirect our suspicions as to who the killer is, one of the actors tries to shoot Courau with a nail gun, but she somehow easily blocks it with a pipe or something, and, in the very next scene, the two of them are outside together, trying to start the car as if nothing happened. There are so many idiotic scenes like this that it just made me sick. I admit it -- I took the damn cassette out of the VCR! I didn't care how it ended! I couldn't take it anymore!

I am a real fan of French movies. French os my second language, and I spent much of my formative years as a movie fan watching Belmondo, Jean Gabin, or Louis de Funes. However, this movie really disappointed me. Taking the European theme of the Red Chaperon, and turning it into a class B American tean horror movie is a performance on the wrong direction. No real thrill, a lot of blood and an average of a murder for every seven screen minutes, flat acting - this is what one should expect from this flip.

If the American studios put their eyes on this script, which might happen judging the lack of fresh ideas in Hollywood scripts lately - we might have a better quality American re-make of a French movie - for a change!

Based on the title, DVD-cover image, casting choices and short synopsis, "Deep in the Woods" looks like a dumb and formulaic backwoods slasher/survival horror flick. And for about 50% that is exactly the case, but for the remaining 50% it's a surprisingly stylish, experimental and unsettling Goth-horror tryout. Writer/director Lionel Delplanque does a handful of brilliant things with the cinematography and thought up a few downright and genuinely disturbing aspects (the creepy little kid!), but unfortunately he also wanted to be too "American" when it comes to the rest of the screenplay. The teenage protagonists are utmost annoying stereotypes and they do the stupidest things imaginable, like going into the woods at night after they received specific warning there's a maniac killer on the loose. The deaths/killings are rather mundane and people keep appearing and disappearing without any proper explanation, but that about concludes the bad news. "Deep in the Woods" features a strong opening sequence and the interesting idea to process the Little Red Riding Hood fairy-tale into the script. Five obnoxious wannabe actors are heading out to a mansion the middle of a desolated forest, where they are hired to perform a private theater show to the grandson of an eccentric old man. Upon their arrival, they find out the old man is a crazed wheelchair-bound psycho with oppressed homo-erotic desires, his loyal servant is a perverted taxidermist and the grandson is a silent and autistic but terrifying child with a major trauma. Soon after their (abysmal) live performance on stage, the group find themselves pursued by a lunatic killer in a leather (!) wolf costume. Delplanque manages to insert several suspense-laden moments during the cat & mouse game and the climax, although preposterous and over-the-top, is quite exhilarating. It's very strange that Lionel Delplanque wasn't offered a one-way ticket to Hollywood after this (like his colleagues Alexandre Aja, Xavier Gens and Pascal Laugier), because his competent directing is undoubtedly film's biggest trump. I guess the script was ultimately too weak for him to become noticed.