Blackwoods

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

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.

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.

Movie #3 of my Boll Marathon, I actually really enjoyed this one, I was a bit bored at first, and the decisions of making some scenes be like 5 frames per second lowers this to a 2/5 rather than a 3/5 because it was genuinely sickening to have that framerate change at times. Once I got past the 30 minute mark though I actually started to be interested in whatever weird plot was going on. While watching my brain first compared it to some horror games I've played recently, one taking place in a motel that gets broken into, and another in a cannibal's house, but then eventually my brain compared the weird movie making decisions with the low frame rate to Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows and its actually REALLY funny how much these two movies have in common now that I finished it. I would absolutely be willing to watch this again with some friends (probably wouldn't watch it again by myself though.)