The Body Tree

We thought we would give this movie a shot but we turned it off straight away. The fact that they filmed in Southern California was so evident from the first time they stopped the car. Everything about the scenes screamed Cali, from the outside of the farm area to inside the house. There was absolutely nothing that said Russia or Siberia at all. That right there spoiled the whole movie. I know I wouldn't be able to see past it.

This is not a real review, it should be understood more as a collection of impressions on the film.

The first thing to say about the film is that the acting is something terrible and terrible and for this reason alone the film deserves to be destroyed rather than watched, then the plot is very banal and in any case so convoluted as to be unnecessarily complicated to understand. But it's complicated because it doesn't make any sense and the ending then has a twist which to say is stupid is to give it a compliment because it's completely useless and it claims to explain the film with a little final explanation that makes everything even more senseless and ugly.

The writers and everyone else involved with creating the plot had a good idea, they just didn't go about writing it very well. They characters weren't introduced very well so it was hard to keep track of who was who and they did a horrible job explaining what happened to their friend that caused them to wind up in Siberia in the first place other than that she inexplicably ended up dead.

I got bored and didn't bother finishing it.

I skipped to the end to find out whodunnit and was annoyed at that too.

The Body Tree is heavily influenced by films such as Ten Little Indians, and The Thing, with a group of people in an isolated location trying to second guess who the killer is. However, the plot turns things on their head in an original way.

Yes it's got plenty of cliched jump scares and slasher movie stereotypes, but this is definitely one of the better horrors I've seen in recent years. The Siberian setting (not the snowbound variety) is distinctive, the acting is decent enough, and the characters are developed enough to have some investment in their fates. Admittedly some are unpleasant.

The group are brought together to celebrate the life of a mutual friend who was murdered. There are some flashbacks that reveal more of the events of that incident, and it keeps the story flowing and entertaining.

It's well worth a watch, and I'm surprised it hasn't had a more positive reaction.