The Barrens

Hoping to reconnect together, an estranged family on a camping trip in the Pine Barrens learn the local legend involving the Jersey Devil is real when the voracious creature appears and forces the family to deal with it to escape the woods.

This here is one of the more frustrating and problematic creature features around as there was a chance to do something special here. The setting here is a dark, creepy forest ripe with really terrifying layouts that are perfect for unleashing a voracious creature, it's quite a decent-looking creature with quite a chilling back-story to begin with, and there's some fun to be had when it gets the family lost in the back-part of the woods along the later half, but instead this one tends to involve a slew of increasingly bizarre and outright unnecessary subplots that make this one seem to go on forever. Adding in the usual family drama is more than enough and never really adds much new material to be influenced by this tactic, which feels like a continuation of the clichés anyway, yet the fact that there's so much extra happening going on here that the beginning to this one is so hard to get into it seems to go on forever dealing with the family issues, teen angst, the dead dog and the quest for closure about his father just makes for a tough time overall. All these subplots simply cause the actual attacks to get pushed back so much that the fun attacks in that second half come so late their inclusion is almost an afterthought and a case for being too little, too late to save this one from the potential it could've had about chasing down the revelers in the forest and them getting caught in the middle the way this starts off as, but even without this plot the beast itself and the action in the final half when he's mad and delirious do make this one somewhat interesting and save it somewhat.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

Alright, lets cut to the chase here, The Barrens, a spin on The Jersey Devil legend, is no uber great movie. Chastised and frowned upon by much of the horror community, you have to wonder just what was expected of a production like this - a pic that's early notices suggested it was never going to shake the earth of the horror crowd?

The Barrens is competent film making in the context of the budget afforded it. When you look at some of the films that have been churned out on the various sci-fi and horror channels out their in cable land, then this definitely has more going for it.

True! There's the usual implausibilities and director and writer Darren Lynn Bousman has pacing problems, but there's good thought gone into the screenplay here, Bousman looking to add a little more to his film than merely being a "monster in the woods" shocker. There's also decent performances from the cast, which only comes to fruition when things finally go belly up in the last third.

Not one to recommend with any sort of confidence, especially to the tough horror loving crowd, but if you are after a "decent" "B" type horror to view while you are pottering about doing stuff in your lounge (or basements), then it proves itself to be more viable than some Syfy channel trash that is churned out at regular intervals. 5.5/10

Darren Lynn Bousman directed some of the more watchable Saw sequels and the cult, horror sci-fi rock opera Repo! The Genetic Opera. Since then, his movies just get worse and worse. After his barely okay Mother's Day, I didn't have high hopes for this movie but it still managed to disappoint me.

True Blood actor Stephen Moyer stars as an upper middle class family man that drags his wife, teenage daughter, and pre-adolescent son out camping to the same place he used to go with his father. Once they arrive at a heavily populated camp site, he immediately begins acting crazier and crazier but this doesn't seem to concern his family, who agree to follow him even deeper into the woods. Along the way, he is haunted by visions of local legend the Jersey Devil, a man eating demon spawn that supposedly stalks the woods.

Not much of The Barrens makes sense and Stephen Moyer's performance is just terrible. He plays the whole film in the same note of crazed, squinting intensity. He rants, pops pills, shoves his kids, and throws jealous temper tantrums at his wife so frequently that he makes Jack Nicholson in The Shining seem balanced. It's completely unbelievable that his family wouldn't be more concerned by his insanity.

Mia Kirshner of The Black Dahlia and The L Word and the rest of his family are better, but they're not given enough personality to impress. Erik Knudson, of Scream 4, Saw 2, and Jericho is also great is a supporting role as a skate punk the daughter befriends and he steals every scene he's in but he doesn't have much screen time.

Aside from a cool looking creature, which may or may not only exist in the father's imagination, there's not much to The Barrens and it just limps along like a wounded hiker for the first hour. Things pick up in the last 30 minutes but it's too little too late and down ending seems forced and, like the rest of the movie, has some major logic issues. I just really can't recommend this movie to anyone.

Before I watch a film, I tend to check IMDb. Sadly,the negatives always prove right. Especially with 'The Barrens'.

This film had a positive review, but I struggle to see why.

OK, I like a good low-budget film (e.g. Carriers), but this was too much. The director did try to create tension - a teenage daughter, protecting a young child, a possibly errant wife, etc., but it all amounted to nothing.

I found myself second-guessing the dialogue, and the story. After an hour of suffering, I gave up.

A nice try, but try harder.

A man takes his family on a camping trip and becomes convinced they are being stalked by the legendary monster of the New Jersey Pine Barrens: the Jersey Devil.

The film opens with a cameo by Shawn Ashmore ("Frozen"). Mysteriously, IMDb is not aware that he appears in this movie, despite his being in the opening credits. (I am sure this will be corrected and this review will look stupid because of it now.) I love how one person on the message board summed this up as "British people should not camp". That is probably very, very true. In fact, everyone's problems would have been solved had this been strictly adhered to.

I am a fan of Darren Lynn Bousman's work, both with "Saw" and after. He has a great style. And, heck, the style here is also pretty darn good. But the film just sort of drags and there is not nearly the level of action this kind of film requires.