review

DON'T GO IN THE WOODS

This movie is awful. No two ways about it. DON'T GO IN THE WOODS re-enforces all those stereotypes that have been attached to the horror film for the past couple of decades. It's stupid, poorly written, and terribly acted. The direction is pathetic, the special effects atrocious. It's without a single redeeming quality. The fact that it was even made, let alone successful, is a testament to how hungry the horror industry was for product and how forgiving horror fans were in the day - and, to some extent, still are. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to pack your bags and move to the land of romantic comedies.


James Bryan's Don't Go in the Woods

DON'T GO IN THE WOODS is yet another story of a group of people who get lost in nature and fall prey to a vicious wild man. It lacks the raw intensity of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, the absurdist humor of MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE, or the slick execution of WRONG TURN. Instead, it lumps tedium upon tedium, relying on it's ridiculously high body count to hold the audience's attention. Countless nameless characters show up on screen only to be dispatched moments later. At times the movie feels more like an effects reel than an actual film. The killings come at the expense of the main narrative of the film - not that we're missing anything - and happen so frequently that they lose whatever punch they might have had. I'll admit, a few are pretty good. The bear trap in the face, the stabbing of a painter through her canvas, and, especially, the hacking to death of one of the lead characters are all amusing despite the shoddy execution.


James Bryan's Don't Go in the Woods

If only the film weren't so goddamned boring. At little more than an hour and twenty minutes, the film feels terminal and unending. Countless scenes of people walking through the woods does not make for compelling viewing. We don't even get anything that could be called a plot development until over the halfway mark. Instead what we get is a lot of walking and a whole lot of bloodshed. That might be enough for the average slasher film fan - they are the most forgiving of all filmgoers, after all - but for anyone who requires a little narrative with their films, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS is likely to drive them utterly batshit. The film also teeters between comedy and horror with reckless abandon. That wouldn't be so bad except that DON'T GO IN THE WOODS is neither funny nor frightening. All the lame one-liners and sight gags - like the wheelchair-bound hiker - fall flat and the tension is nil. This is an utter failure on all sides.


Don't Go in the Woods... Alone

James Bryan enjoyed a mild success with DON'T GO IN THE WOODS. It is is his most commercial feature film but far from his best - thankfully. The sex and blood parades LADY STREET FIGHTER and THE DIRTIEST GAME IN THE WORLD are both quality pieces of exploitation. Far from being a born director, Bryan's style is mostly point and shoot but in THE DIRTIEST GAME and LADY STREET FIGHTER, he displayed at least some semblance of interest in his work. None of that interest is present in DON'T GO IN THE WOODS. It remains to this day a cult film, an early slasher that genuinely prefigured that slop that was to come. The real claim to fame for DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, however, was it's inclusion on the ridiculous "Video Nasty" list in the U.K.. That DON'T GO IN THE WOODS found itself in the company of films like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, THE DRILLER KILLER and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is most fortunate. It's the only time it will ever share a place among the horror greats.


Absolute garbage.


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