The Woods Are Real

Having seen that the director doesn't do bad films, I kept sitting through it hoping to be enthralled & entertained, but it never came.

I got to the halfway point before giving up.

The story upto where I aborted was, couple host party, guest wears cake, invites them to the woods, they goto the woods, get lost, bloke in a mask steapsbthe wife, bloke gets lost again, finda a friend, finds some birds who can sing, has something to eat with them, "Oh Good God, this is boring, abort abort".

So at that point I gave up & read a book about a bird who lived in her own in the Dales. It was riveting. Unlike this.

If I can watch an entire film, but don't enjoy it, I give it a 5 because I watched it all.

This film, though of a high production quality, I'd possibly have given lower than a 4, but because of the coin spent on it, it gets a solid Four.

Check it out.

I'd say the vibe of this is more the speed of someone looking for more than blood, guts, violence. If I had to compare it to something recently, I think the Invitation or actually that film - it Comes at Night. It's not a virus spreading or anything like that - but it's sort of this contagion of faith the characters are going through. And have to get out by any means necessary.

Did you like Squid Game? This is actually more on that track. A survival test. Or The Game from the 90s with the dude from wall street. Took my son to this when it played a festival here in Washington. He's in his teens, brought his friend, they both thought it was cool as well. Which surprsied me, becuase it's not an "easy" movie.

I was really enjoying it up until they ran out of the house, including the very obvious religious metaphors which usually make many movies with religious undertones unwatchable for myself much sooner, but then it just completely lost any sort of direction. It's a pity because I found it nicely filmed and the acting was above average for most of the cast. The dialogue went from bad to worse to absolutely ludicrous. Skipped through the last 20 minutes because I couldn't be bothered to follow increasingly nonsensical things the characters were saying. I don't usually give movies a 1 star if the cinematography does it for me, or especially when I started off enjoying the first 10 minutes. That's just how bad it got though.

1 star final verdict.

Lat time I watched a christian film tricking you to watch it under the guise of horror/thriller, I sat through was just as empty and boring as this one. Fortunately I was doing some painting whilst this was on in the background.

At no point at all was it interesting, captivating or clever. Somehow I waited if there would be a twist. Nope. Just christians trying to reel you in under false pretences.

The camera work was quite good actually, the acting was dismal, even though the actors didn't have much to work with, so they did their best.

Why not make an overtly christian movie, with colour, love, proper story lines, teaching whilst being entertaining?

I watched some overtly christian films as a kid, like Jesus of Nazareth and found them highly interesting. Not enough to make me believe but I didn't get bored and it was entertaining historically. Plus I knew what it was about. No tricks needed.

Happy to say that I am still a non believer and even more so after this really bad excuse of veiled preaching. I don't like being duped.

Please just own up to it, put into the title or the description, that this is a christian film. I wonder why the makers of this movie haven't learned from their own film's meaning?

Surprisingly, I managed to stay for the entire duration of this movie, so that's one thing that was going for it, however the production value is very low, looks like shot on an iphone without much direction and retakes. Even the cuts between the scenes is if done by a free editing software.

Surprisingly the acting is above average here, although the chemistry between the different actors is mediocre, as very common to this level of production quality, it does seem like the actors make an effort and care about their acting level and the characters they portray.

One major thing to remember coming in to see this movie is that this is a Christianity movie with ideas rotating around biblical and faith elements (such as the sacrifice of a son and others). If you are not familiar with the bible stories and expecting some hard-core horror movie you will be deeply disappointed. The value of this movie as action/horror is extremely low.

Overall I cannot really recommend this movie, all I can do is commend the actors and the director for producing a watchable movie for such low budget, but it is really a sub-par watch. Exact score: 4.4 / 10.