If a Tree Falls

A group of generic teenage, slasher victims go into the woods. There's a little more given for the plot but that's about all that really matters. What you get beyond that is a sad attempt at a grindhouse throwback with a couple of musical bars that sound vaguely 70's and a title card that features 70's style font. Rather then providing a feeling of grit from having been shot on cheap film like it's grindhouse fore bearers; it's shot on a video camera and a cheap grain filter is applied in a sad attempt at appearing authentic. The gore is not only cheap but mostly non existent. Even cheapies like Blood Freak or I Drink Your Blood had better gore effects then this.

Steer clear of this one!

Whoever wrote, filmed, directed, especially casted, and then watched this after making it and thought yeah this is great.... needs to be locked in a mental institution for mental illness. Complete garbage and a waste of everyone's time.

Disappointing.

I really wanted to like this. I knew it was low budget and forgive them for many things due to this.

The acting is passable, some stronger than others. Dialogue is pretty poor and unrealistic and desperate to appear natural.

Started strong. Opening scene with a beautiful women tied up and blindfolded. So far so exploitation right.......after the opening scene which gave me hope it starts to drag with the new characters taking ages to get to the woods. (After a cringe inducing scene in a cafe with a gun chewing idiot who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag.

Then scenes are just dragged out far too long and nowhere near as shocking as they think it is. A small amount of blood but no real gore effects as sleeve promised. I think the director thought he was being shocking with the scenes but they were really tame. Zero real threat or torture. No sexual assault or real torture at all except a few weak slaps.

The director thought he was making a powerful scene which blatantly stole from The Last House on the Left (itself an overrated mess of a film) but with about 1% of the threat or atmosphere of that infamous one scene.

The film needed better threat, better torture, some gore. More scenes like the start and end. Hey......maybe a plot? Ha ha Better camera work (bad shaky cam here folks) and less of the faux scratched film filter in it to try to be grindhouse. Ha ha Ends strong but about 35mins is just padding.

Watchable if nothing else but I wouldn't rush.

Luckily got it really cheap.

Ever since Tarantino and Rodriguez made GRINDHOUSE, their double-bill tribute to the exploitation cinema of the 1970s, B-movies have been emulating their style. To this end they'll add in effects to make it look like the film is scratched and damaged and throw in old-fashioned 'coming attractions' titles and the like. That's the case with IF A TREE FALLS, an absolutely dreadful addition to the horror genre that comes from Canada.

The film's simplistic narrative is about a group of teenage friends who venture out into the woods and are assailed by a gang of masked attackers. Plenty of bad taste stuff ensues, including cheap and lousy gore effects and lots of screaming. The film is near plot less and the acting very poor with irritating dialogue and horrendous shrill screaming and the like. I found the movie to be pretty sleazy and unpleasant but never powerful in the way a film like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was genuinely powerful. Instead it's a complete waste of time.

The film has a number of different elements that never quite come together, almost as if several directors made their own versions, then a complete stranger made a film from bits found on the cutting room floor.

The set-up does enough to establish who's who but introduces characters who are distracting. Of the four main characters, one smokes cannabis away from the others. One of these irrelevant bit parts ask the rest of the group if he can buy some, but never asks the person who has it.

There is an interlude at a lake. Sometimes the group are the only people there; at other times there are incidentals all around. There is discussion about how it is illegal to camp, but they make no attempt to hide their car.

When the violence begins, there are clips of grainy video. Did they plan a found footage film but change their minds?

The attack itself is shocking and brutal, intended to disturb, but I was distracted again by the lack of any obvious motivation. The violence seemed random, the killings more so, but why did the assailants bother?

A character is hit with an axe but receives a wound that looks like a long but not deep cut. One is burned, but this seems to puncture his abdomen without damaging his shirt. Despite overwhelming numbers, most of the group escape. Only later do we discover one has died (no spoiler, considering the theme), but not really how.

The final act teases some hope of an explanation but ends up adding to the confusion (for me, at least). A video tape exists, but does not provide resolution or detail. The theme of being lost in a vast country is overturned, as is the idea that the first group were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are good building blocks, but they are not from the same construction set. I was left baffled by the motivation of the characters, good and bad, the blind alleys of plotting that were abandoned before we even reached the dead end, the dialogue involving the assailants, the remoteness of the area. There is violence and blood, and there is tension; they simply don't gel together. The best bits are still on the floor, waiting for an editor with vision.