djzilla

Deep in the Woods is a bizarre little French horror film that came out my last year of college. I remember it distinctly for the haunting trailer and eagerly awaited it's release. I remember enjoying it but not sure why so I thought, time to rewatch this film.

Almost Argento-esque in it's style, Deep in the Woods very much borrows form the great Italian giallos that came before it. It was very obvious that the director was attempting to do that. For the most part succeeded quite nicely. It is the story of a group of five actors traveling to a mansion in the French countryside to perform a play for a young autistic boy and his father for the boy's birthday. Shortly after arriving it's quite obvious things are not always as they seem. The father takes an instant unhealthy obsession with Wilfried one of the male actors. There is the creepy groundskeeper annoyed at waiting on the master of the house. This guy oozes creepiness. After performing the play, the master invites the group to stay for dinner and overnight, one of the group wants to leave almost immediately but they haven't been paid so they decide to stay. There's a newsreport of an escaped madman and the police are flying over with helicopters trying to find him. This is the setting of a series of bizarre murders that make this the giallo style horror film it is.

Deep in the Woods takes a long time to really get going, and frankly there are some strange scenes that it looks like the director threw in just to be "creepy". The almost comical French policeman for one. I honestly had a hard time taking seriously. Still I was really attracted to the style of the film and cinematography. The connection to the Red Riding Hood story and the color red and the woods really matched well artistically. The cast is generally solid although watching it in French really is the only way to go as the dubbed version is horrific. I couldn't tell generally if the cast was great actors or amateurs like they portrayed when putting on a play. Still, they are beautiful and the two male leads are beyond attractive.

Overall, Deep in the Woods is a slightly flawed attempt at a giallo that still offers a lot to enjoy. Sure there are long stretches that don't really offer much in the way of horror but enjoy the ride. Ignore the critics who say this is boring film with no merit, the visuals alone make it worth a watch once and those that appreciate giallo will enjoy it. I'm proud to have it in my collection.

What in the world do these guys that create those god awful animated shorts have on the Kings? The literally kill the flow of every episode they are in and this is no exception.

Everyone hates them! For the love of god, STOP!

When I heard this movie was by the producers of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" I thought I would check it out to see what it offered. That was my mistake.

Not to say this movie doesn't have any redeeming qualities, it does in fact have one major one. The plot is extremely interesting. It concerns a 50's B movie star who is stuck in a real life movie based on a series of films he stared in. With a blend of B movie magic and mainstream Alien wannabe this movie falls apart. A creature (horrible CGI) is stalking the residents of a small town and the movie star is the "town hero" Only he can save the town from certain destruction. Unfortunately he's been locked away cause the townspeople think he's insane. In comes his grandson to the rescue.

This movie would have been brilliant if the directors had decided to keep up with the B movie elements and went for a monster suit not the horrible CGI (when will movie makers learn you can't make living things out of CGI look right!). Sadly this movie deserves only to be viewed once if only for the plot. 3 out of 10.