Don't Go in the Woods

Not that the concept of a teenage slasher musical is stupid or anything! The acting was awful. The writing was awful. The directing wasn't awful only because there didn't appear to be any. The photography was acceptable in the sense that most of the movie was in focus. So far, this pretty much describes any teenage slasher movie. The real awfulness that sets this one apart is the music. It is indescribable. The songs turn up, for no apparent reason, about every five minutes and they are atrocious. They have lyrics like "I breathe every breath for me!" I'm glad the kid understands the physiology of breathing, but does he have to sing about it? It's hard to comment on the score because the teenagers are absolutely unable to play any musical instrument (except for the blind kid whose electric bass works just fine in the forest, as if by magic)and are even less able to carry a tune. I would think that a random sample of kids off the street would contain at least one who could carry a tune. Not this sample! The casting director had to go out of his way to find kids who couldn't sing a note. Why did I watch? The same reason people are fascinated by train wrecks, I guess. I couldn't look away. It really, really was that awful!

Before I say anything about the movie, I want readers to know that I love horror movies, and the idea of a horror/musical to me sounds like it could be awesome. I thoroughly enjoy horror movies of all kinds, especially the really bad ones that just make you laugh.

Don't Go in the Woods is a total disgrace to horror film. I've seen hundreds of horror films, and I seriously cannot remember the last time I was this irritated by a one. This movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities. From square one you're forced to endure crappy songs over and over and over and over again. Fine, I get the whole "band in the woods trying to get inspired" thing, but it seems like the director for some reason needed every single insignificant "actor" in the film to get a solo song performance, which just makes no sense to me at all. Another thing is that the music gets more and more irritating as the movie goes along. Just when you think you're free from the terrible music, and you might actually get some horror or gore, another cheese-ball "I'm so sad" song that's even worse than the last starts right up again. At some point I couldn't hold myself back from fast forwarding through them, which was about when I realized just how much of this movie is occupied by bad music. Some of the songs are even repeated by different characters in the movie, making them even more frustratingly bad.

It's really beyond me how anyone could positively review this piece of work. Fine if you like the idea of a horror/musical, and fine if you think it's "original", but the aggravatingly repetitive songs, the too-little-too-late killings, the fragmented straw-man plot, the absolute lack of suspense, the terrible acting, and most of all the HORRIBLE score make this movie a 0/10 in my book.

I hardly ever write reviews on here, but if even one person reads this review and decides against watching this movie, then at least I've saved one soul. Movies like this are like land mines waiting to be stepped on so they can reveal just how bad a movie can get.

I URGE readers to just leave this one alone. It's terrible, and NOT the good kind of terrible. It's not funny, or clever, or really anything but obnoxious.

Oh where to begin, where to begin. Let's start easy with the premise of this movie and how stupid it is. So, it is kind of a known tradition by most music fans that many of bands in the past have shuffled off to some remote place to write and record an album. Just like some authors do it too. They do it to get away from any and all distractions and to allow their artistic and creative juices to flow. These morons however choose to go on a camping trip to do this. Yep, a band goes into the woods to write music, with no shelter from the elements for their instruments and you guessed it, no electricity to power their instruments! All to try to score a record deal. So, they only bring acoustic guitars, except the blind bass player, yep, you read right and I'll even say it again, blind bass player, he brings his actual electric bass. Have fun playing that in the woods with no electricity or amp. Amazingly though, when he plays his bass sounds like it's being played through an Amp. It must be one of those magic fairy dust woodland amps that are invisible and don't require electricity. The drummer brings simply a snare and some bongos and well the keyboardist lucked out that his instrument can work on batteries. Yep they're gonna make great songs that will totally land them a record deal, please.

So now the campsite is set up and they start cranking out tunes, yep this movie straight turns into an episode of Glee, and you thought you were watching a horror movie. Jokes on you if you actually watch this movie.

These guys all look like hippy Beattie rejects and the blind bass player resembles the looney tunes buzzard. Google it if you're too young to know who that is. Did I mention the songs were terrible? So Mr head honcho, singer... even though they all sing? Anyway won't let them do drugs or drink or have phones, nothing. How are these guys expecting to let their creative juices flow without stimulants? Yeah, they think they're that good, rolls eyes.

Night one some of the guys gfs and some groupies apparently stalked them and crash their little song writing get away. Gotta have chick's in a "horror" movie right? Oh and guess what? Just like in an episode of glee, the girls can sing and play and song write too! Oh boy!

So Mr Madonna singer is super mad and is treating his gf like dirt, the rest of the guys are happy to see girls and booze like real Rockstars would be in, well any situation. Next morning Madonna wakes everyone up bright and early to run the girls off so they can focus on writing their Mr Hollands Opus masterpieces. This is as far as I've honestly gotten, that's how annoyed I was with this stupid movie, I paused it to write this review. Not to mention I've FF through a 1/4 of it just to avoid listening to the stupid songs, cause yeah they all suck and sound the same. What do you expect when you restrict yourself to only instruments that can be played without electricity cause you thought it was a good idea to write and record, oh yeah, we all know how songs sound the absolute best on little pocket tape recorders right? Moving on, write and record music in the woods.

I'll come back and update after I make it to the end of this steaming pile of doody, assuming I can. Never have I wanted every character to die so badly in a "horror" movie, if you can even call this that.

Update time: So it got worse and the killer cant kill these tools fast enough. They managed to get so many more songs out OMG. There might be one teeny tiny saving grace, no no I changed my mind. If you do decide to watch this, pay attention to the ridiculously goofy and dumb faces the singer makes when singing oh it's too much lol. Just terrible God awful movie, avoid at all costs.

A slasher musical?

I'll give props to Vincent D'Onofrio the actor who debts as a director on this film. On the bonus features he mentions how while he was waiting for a geen light on another film, he had a film crew and a backyard and some of his nephew's friends to help him put it together in less than a mouth. For that the movie is cool.

But I'm not a fan of the musical in general and it did not help that the music being played sucks in my book. The movie is about a band of hipsters from Brooklyn going into the woods (even though a sign clearly states don't do it)to write songs for the next album, only to be hunted down by the dude I would not be surprised put up the sign in the first place.

The movie starts off funny as the Hipsters literally fall into all the horror clichés (starting with going into the woods), but then I had to sit in on a second act filled with music that was just to whining for me. One song after another and I wanted to shoot myself. But then...then, the slasher comes out. Possibly just as sick of the music as I am, he puts the kibosh on their little camp out.

It's hard for me to say weather the movie is good or not. I enjoyed it. I don't know if D'Onofrio purposely laid out the movie to be so annoying that you cheer the slasher when he starts chopping up these hipsters. I would love to think so.

Realistically, the making off the movie is more impressive than the movie itself.

Disastrous.

I only watched this because I was interested to watch what D'Onofrio could come up with.

I wish I hadn't.

Its a horrible movie.