Wood Witch: The Awakening

Wood Witch (2020) is a new movie recently released on Amazon Prime for free I watched over the weekend. Two Couples head into the woods that they've heard a local legend about but they don't believe. Shortly after getting into the woods the trees come to life and their camping trip takes a turn for the worse. This movie is directed by Courtney G. Jones (Crossed Lines) and stars Shannon Dowling (Halfway House), Ted Dowling (Z Nation), Sydney Mitchell and Cameron Walsworth. The storyline and execution of this film was below par. The film has some cool CGI for the woods/witch that was entertaining but not overly convincing or executed with the level of intensity I was hoping for. Overall this is a below average addition to the Witch and horror genres. I'd score it a 3/10.

Not very good. Cheap very cheesy CGI/ effects. Pretty cheesy acting. Pretty cheesy plot. Better CGI needed maybe 5 stars or so then. Not recommended

The beginning was good and really caught my attention. As soon as they went in the woods it was just bleh! And the ending makes it seem like there will be a second one but don't count on anyone watching that one! The witch looked like those rock people from Frozen but tall. Don't waste your time!

Started off well, the build-up was good. UNTIL they met the 'witch' Hel....the CGI was so bad, probably suited more to a kids' movie than this. The witch resembled that cute little character Groot from 'Guardians of the galaxy' and was so patently fake that it ruined the entire premise here. The acting was, well, they tried their best, but I guess it's hard to act like your'e terrified of Groot. OK, one point, they went into the forest with very LITTLE equipment (eg. Tiny backpacks), but had TWO tents and everything they needed to camp, cooking utensils, food etc which mysteriously appeared from nowhere.

Let's just say, it all went downhill from the initial encounter with 'Hel' then it was a cartoon. No character development at all, which meant you just didn't care what happened to these obnoxious young people.

But, hey, some of you might enjoy it for laughter (it really WAS that bad) value.

It's one of those found footage movies where it's 10/10 for effort and 2/10 for execution and result.

Two young couples take a camping trip to an island in Puget Sound to investigate an urban legend about the Norse goddess Hel being trapped on Midgard (Earth) as a tree. When one of the group voices an incantation they are horrified to discover the legend is real.

"Wood Witch: The Awakening" (2020) is a found footage indie similar to "The Blair Witch Project" (1999) but all-around more satisfying and relatively worthy of its runtime (whereas "Blair Witch" was easily 35 minutes too long). One of the highlights is Juliana Azcarate as Ari and Sydney Mitchell as Cari, both beautiful and winsome inside and out. Meanwhile the locations are fabulous and the performances convincing.

The problem is the "found footage" angle, at least for me. This flick would've worked better as a straightforward creature feature in the manner of "Ogre" (2008), but that would've taken more effort & money to pull off. Still, this is an entertaining found footage monster flick. Unlike "Blair Witch," the antagonist is revealed in the last act. Yeah, it's cartoonish, but at least there's a payoff.

The film runs 1 hour, 16 minute, and was shot on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

GRADE: B-