Witches in the Woods

A group of young friends take a shortcut along an unfamiliar, snow covered road but end up getting stuck in the middle of nowhere (well in the woods actually, where apparently some witches were once tried, or something). In terms of horror it takes almost an hour for anything to happen, prior to that it is mainly the group arguing. The Blair Witch is an obvious influence, it does manage to be creepy at times, there is also a few decent gore scenes. But overall it is slow, boring, the acting is mediocre and there is no satisfactory explanation to the events.

Well, for starters, lets just say that you shouldn't have too high expectations for the 2019 movie "Witches in the Woods". When I sat down to watch it here in 2020, I hadn't even heard about it before. But I liked the movie's cover, and given it being a horror movie, of course I found the time to sit down and watch it.

Now, I didn't know anything about the movie, so I had no expectations. So director Jordan Barker had every chance available to impress and entertain me. I ended up only mildly entertained, however. Yeah, this movie - while it was watchable - just wasn't a particularly outstanding horror movie.

I will say that it had every premise readily available. I mean, a remote forest, heavy snowfall, encroaching night, no means of escape. It had so much potential, but somehow writers Christopher Borrelli and David Lafontaine just failed to utilize that potential to the maximum possible outcome. And the end result was ultimately just mediocre.

The acting in the movie was good enough, taking into consideration the limitations of the script and director. But while adequate performances did count for something, it just wasn't sufficient to make up for the shortcomings of the movie.

For a horror movie, then "Witches in the Woods" was rather bland, bordering on being boring at times. There just was so little worthwhile in terms of scares and creep factor in the movie. Again, a shame, because there was so much potential within reach.

I managed to sit through the entire movie, but this is without a doubt not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. My rating of "Witches in the Woods" is a very bland and mediocre five out of ten stars.

You know in horror movies when characters mostly do that one thing they shouldn't be doing? Depending on the actors, the story and other circumstances you may be able to forgive these things ... I'd argue it is near impossible to really forgive anyone involved here.

Especially the inciting incident ... roads taken and all that. You do wonder why anyone would trust someone as obviously out of touch and clueless as the one our "group" believes in here. There is an underlying and depending on your view very well or poorly handled backstory involving one of the girls. She is also the center of many more scenes of "come on" - "are you seriously going to do that?" ... again, suspend your disblief ... because if you don't ... well it is going to be a "painful" watch. It is shot in a very good way though and you can see some merit(s) in it.

'Witches in the Woods' is a good slasher with some thriller elements.

While it is mostly done by the book, you still get your set of absolutely despicable characters you really want to see dead, and they do, eventually.

It gets boring at times but is still watchable.

I can't really recommend it, but if you have some free time and you have nothing else to do, you can give it a try.

As noted by others, sub-par acting, and lackluster scares, if at all. Most of the action is set in the car so don't expect much scenery and eery locations when it matters. Women sobbing and crying all the time does not make good horror, or does it?