The Redwood Massacre

The movie was not good at all. Acting was mediocre, plot was barely existent, and there was no depth to any of the characters. Now usually I can let a not great plot slip if there's enough bloodshed, and don't get me wrong there is a lot of that in this movie, but it was just so cookie cutter. There was nothing new or different or middle entertaining. It was just the same old copy paste "Guy with mask goes around a forest stabbing people" and it just felt like nobody put any effort into any aspect of the movie. The ending was the worst part though, because it just kept dragging on. The last 30 minutes (and the movie is only 1 hour 22 minutes) is just you thinking its over but nope it isn't because of some stupid uninteresting irrelevant thing that either doesn't make sense, or is just plain boring. It had its moments if you're like me and you like slashers, but it was just so cookie cutter, so boring, so predictable, so unentertaining. There are no scares in this movie at all. I don't even remember if they tried to put in a jump scare, I was so bored I just really didn't care.

This movie certainly isn't the worst you'll see in the horror genre. Poor opening titles doesn't set the movie up well but it does have it moments. The special effects are way over the top but in alot of instants its done well. It is pretty much an all out gore fest and doesn't really have much plot to it. My main gripe with movie was just how long the ending dragged on for, this realy killed the movie.

The Redwood Massacre is an attempt on doing a slasher movie with some urban legend attached to it. Although, it's important to remember that this is a B movie.

Given that, it's obvious that the acting isn't great; in fact, it's terrible. Though some emotions got pictured rather good, some dialogs seemed so emotionless, as if the actors were college students trying to present a seminary. It's comparable to the acting on "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" (yep, it's that bad...)!

All the clichés are here: an urban legend that happens to be real, a psychopath, bloodlust, characters that are dumb as a door, gore, characters that go straight to the slaughterhouse; it's all here!

Credibility in this movie sucks! Though, it's understandable: things aren't that "entertaining" in real life. What I mean is that the main characters on this types of genre never try to get help of any kind, like calling the police or something; but that's the mark of an horror-slasher flick. I can bear that.

However, some flaws are noticeable. Some major flaws, actually. If you're that type of person who watches a movie and goes full critic on it, you'll see what I mean. (Some credibility mistakes can't be overlooked.).

Plot was nothing special and I felt it was fine, until the very ending. I mean, what more to expect: it's about a murderer who murders. There's nothing to it. Though, to me, they could've developed a better backstory to the main villain. It seemed unthought and kinda mediocre.

Also, I didn't like that the villain's personality changed throughout the movie. That's kinda bad and ruins credibility (and the movie) for me. It delivers that feeling that the story isn't flowing "naturaly", that it's being manipulated to the taste of some "sick f***" writer.

After the plot twist, I felt that the storyline got kinda rushed.

The ending was fine, by its standards, but what's up with one event that happens there? To me, that one fact ruined the movie's ending! It felt as an excuse, an unexplained, unadvised, unthought, excuse! I was in shock when I saw where things were going. Geez!

Besides, Kirsty's personality is hateful! I needed to clear that out!

Effects were fine, but the blood's color was way too dark. Overall, this movie delivers the same thing as every slasher flick nowadays.

The title pretty much tells the story, there are some killings in the wood and that's pretty much it. This so called massacre is presented by the antagonist whose blows are powerful enough to make a fountain of blood from any victim he meets. While hemorrhaging is no joke, it seems everyone has tendency to squirt liters of blood from the slightest touch. The excessively low budget gore is occasionally creepy, but mostly ironically ridiculous. Nevertheless, it has at least a little entertainment value.

A group of people go to a forest and meet with gruesome fate. Honestly, no one in the group is even remotely likable. Either they suddenly encounter the threat and proceed to usual frantic screaming, or the movie invests too much time on shallow characters. One particular female is so hostile, her entire dialogues consist of argument. This is very bizarre, especially when she still argues in the moments where her survival is at stake. At some points I thought she might just debate with the villain.

Other characters are overzealous, lacking logic or too meek. None of them feel as though they are genuinely facing authentic dangerous scenario with the villain gradually approaching. Scenes are poorly done, mainly because the editing is choppy. Almost the entire time the characters are shown standing randomly and awkwardly delivering the lines. Furthermore, it feels the screenplay misses a couple of scenes or lacking consistency, but audience probably wouldn't lose much anyway.

The effect is laughably over-the-top. Expect too much cheap blood spewed on the screen. It really doesn't matter what the cause is, these people will bleed. It only takes a simple jab and one of them starts to vomit blood until their hair and clothes are covered with it. This silly execution might just serendipitously work in in their favor as comedy effect.

The Redwood Massacre is unoriginal and shallow, even to the point of unintentionally funny, but the rigid slasher premise or silly antic might just deliver a few chuckles.

A lot is done right here, the kills are alright. The killer is actually pretty cool. There is a lot of blood. But the whole time something is missing. The killer looks pretty cool, but at the same time he is kind of boring.

I caught myself wondering why I wasn't more entertained by this, because it should have been more entertaining. It had the necessities. It has large amounts of blood, which I like, the problem is it just looks like someone is pouring blood on whoever gets killed. Didn't have the impact it should.

One thing that was real bad was the punching-sounds. For the most part the sound design was OK, but in a couple of scenes the killer is beating the crap out of someone, blood is just gushing, and the sound of the hits are like, *tsh* *tsh* *tsh*. That doesn't fly. You need some bass, and some good crunch in there, for a big fist hitting a face repeatedly like that. Strange how the director was just fine with that.

And it is so light for most of the movie. Like daytime. Not scary or tense at all.

Anyway, this is probably not worth your time, I'm afraid. There are a lot of good slashers out there. Maybe skip this one.