Woodland Grey

Well, the synopsis for the 2021 mystery thriller "Woodland Grey" definitely over-sold the movie. I must admit that I was intrigued about this movie, after having read the synopsis. Sure, when I sat down to watch this movie from writers Adam Reider and Jesse Toufexis then I had never actually heard about it.

I have to say that the movie's storyline was a swing and a miss in terms of properly entertaining me. Sure, the movie started out okay, as you don't really know what is going on, and there is a strange atmosphere to the movie. But as the movie progress nothing worthwhile actually happens, and the movie just monotonously trots on in a bland pace.

And as the movie comes to an end, I have to say that I was left with a staggering and overwhelming sense of 'Was that really it? Seriously?'. So yeah, I wasn't impressed with director Adam Reider's 2021 movie, much less particularly entertained.

The movie doesn't have a particularly large cast ensemble, so there was somewhat of a bigger pressure on the actors and actresses to carry the movie with their performances. I will say that Jenny Raven (playing Emily) and Ryan Blakely (playing William) actually did manage to carry the movie well enough with their performances, despite of having very little to work with in terms of script and characters.

I managed to sit through the entire ordeal, and I do call it an ordeal because the pacing of the narrative was slow and monotonous, and there wasn't really much of anything thrilling or exciting going on as the storyline progressed.

My rating of "Woodland Grey" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

There have been many movies in the "mystery in a forest" genre. You would think that it has all been done. Have I seen them all? Nope. Am I a movie snob? Nope. But I do enjoy being entertained.

When some movies are done, you just leave the theatre and go along your day. The real mark of success for me is when you keep discussing what you watched after the movie has ended. It makes you think, it keeps you guessing.

Is Woodland Grey a perfect movie? I don't think so. But it was entertaining, it got me thinking, and I can say that I am looking forward to future full lenghts movies from this director.

I don't mind a slow burn, but sometimes I get the sense that a movie is just wasting time. Woodland Grey does that right from the beginning and never really paces any of the exposition as well as it could. We get long, drawn out segments where the point is made, but the scene still continues. Eventually, by the middle of the movie, some interest has been built, and we are given enough clues to want to see where this all ends up. Then, in the final act, the characters just seem to be going around in circles. The same moments get repeated, dream sequences tease resolution, and we really don't learn much about what we want to know. I don't have any criticisms about the performances or filmmaking; I just felt like they never decided what was actually going on and left the story vague rather than think it through first. Movies can leave some questions for the viewer and finish on an open-ended moment, but they should feel like the filmmakers at least knew what they were presenting. When the story just keeps piling on strange happenings with no coherence, I usually assume they just didn't want to wait to work on the script enough before going ahead with filming.

Not sure why there is so much hate on this movie and people having trouble understanding it. It's well-acted, well shot and the pacing is perfect. There is mystery, character building, plot twists, an ending and a denouement. Even though it's shot out of the U. S., you believe they are in the woods in Connecticut or upstate New York. I kept thinking about this movie days later. If you're expecting a high kill count, slasher movie it's not that at all. It's an interesting film that holds your attention with plenty of thrills.

A beautiful piece of art. Mesmerising, dreamlike, wonderfully shot and perfectly acted.

Story is follow-able if you pay attention which people refuse to do anymore, they want to sit scrolling their phone, half watching and count on severe expositional spoon feeding at the end to fill in the gaps.

This is a gorgeous and deep movie and I'm sick of movies like this getting badly reviewed by inattentive jerks who'd be more at home seeing what disneyplus has limped into the barn with.

You're killing the movie industry, mentioning idiocracy is cliche at this point but if the shoe fits.

Sigh

If you like the dreamy, lost in the woods, surreal type horror movies then you'll enjoy this.