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Before inflicting HOUSE OF THE DEAD onto the world, in what the trade papers promise to be the first of several awful cinematic adaptations of video games, Uwe Boll made this cheap German-financed shot-in-British Columbia (though set in the U.S.) opus. The box makes it sound like another take on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, though only a few minutes of the movie towards the end could be considered so. The movie's more of a psychological thriller of sorts, trying hard to bring things together for a neat twist at the end, though the twist is one that's been used in several major Hollywood movies released in the past few years. It's a pretty dull and cheap affair for the most part, with a lot of unanswered questions such as that nude sequence near the end. Muldoon gives another sleepwalking performance that makes you wonder why he's a star even in the direct-to-video market. The movie's also not helped by Boll's *frequent* penchant for flashforwards (which naturally spoil some things to come), flashbacks (a number of which are not only repeated, but way too many times), and awful use of blurry slow-motion in these segments *plus* the "normal" parts of the movie! At least Clint Howard brings some welcome comic relief in his few brief scenes.

I would give this movie 7/10, but when I saw the low score on imdb I made it 8/10.

Blackwoods is a very neat direct-to-video psychological thriller, in a style that was popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Movies with a lot more budget were made in this genre back then and of course these movies are better.

Although Blackwoods will never win any prizes, I don't think that's why this movie scores so bad on imdb. The box of my DVD mentions as genre Horror and I suspect that because of this, and also the photo of the ax on the cover, fans of slashers have bought this movie. And what Blackwoods is not now is an easy Friday night popcorn scary movie.

But for those looking for an entertaining film, there is a lot in return: good plot, good acting, beautifully filmed and at times quite a bit of excitement. For the enthusiast.

On a road-trip to meet her family, a couple get sidetracked by the residents of a small-town community who are seemingly trying to kill him, but as he spends more time in the area, he begins to see the real reason behind their actions and tries to stop them before he comes to any harm.

There's a lot to dislike here as this was a really flawed entry. One of the biggest is that it's built around one of the most insipid and utterly moronic twists in the genre (it's not the worst, but man is it up there) that basically makes the entire film completely worthless, and when combined with an irritating belief that every single action scene must be shot in slow-motion combined with a camera angle that is so blurred and out-of-focus it's still impossible to tell what's going on. There's almost no gore or even kills happening on-screen and that it's more of a mystery than anything makes it nearly impossible to get into this one and really care since nothing happens. It's got his usual flare for gorgeous scenery, but that's about it here beyond the final chase through the woods which has a rather nice amount of action to it, but it's still too little too late to save this.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity

This has an awful story line. Awful acting. It is not scary. The ending has a twist the ruins the hole thing. It is not good has all. It is a big pile of poo poo with pee pee on it.

A while back I read an interview with Uwe Boll saying how his early non-video-game-adaptation movies are better and people should watch them as well before judging him. I've done both, and I have to say Uwe Boll makes no bad calls any other straight-to-video filmmaker wouldn't either, he's just much more high-profile thanks to his video-game franchise licenses. He isn't a bad director, but he's not one of the best either. Blackwoods is a case in point. It's an entertaining, solid movie, but it has problems, namely confusing writing and an end that comes suddenly and explains everything in five minutes flat.

Blackwoods constantly refers via flashback to a horrible car crash that the main character has before the start of the movie, where a woman is accidentally killed. It constantly drops hints that 'sumthin' ain't right' with the main guy Matt, but doesn't really have any exposition till the closing minutes. While this keeps the pace brisk, it does mean that you feel a little left out of proceedings.

Also, the cast lay their 'you ain't from around here is ya boy' routine on a little thick. If Clint Howard had acted any stranger I would have started to expect Jeremy Beadle to hop out from behind a TV set during the motel segment. Given that Boll actually does a good job of developing an uneasy atmosphere for the movie, it seems unfortunate that he also got his actors to really turn up the 'weird dudes' knob. It kind of cheapens the effective direction a little.

Still, despite it being quite confusing at times, and having some fairly odd, unnecessarily nuanced acting (not bad, just really strange), Blackwoods is an entertaining film. The storyline is intriguing, and the way it's fed to you is quite gripping. Unlike Boll's House of the Dead, his other film I've seen, which is non-stop stupidity (though I hasten to add, that's good stupid not bad stupid), Blackwoods is quite intelligent and well put together. It's worth a shot, don't expect a miracle, but give it a try, you could enjoy it a lot.