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Overall Rating : 2.5/10
Directed By : Vincent D'Onofrio
Bo Boddie
Eric Bogosian (Wonderland)
Gwynn Galitzer
Jorgen Jorgensen
Supplied By : Tribeca Film
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : January. 17, 2012
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| PLOT Don't Go in the Woods is sound advice, especially when there's a killer on the loose. First-time director Vincent D'Onofrio explores love, greed and ruthlessness in this twisted musical/horror hybrid, telling the story of a young band who heads to the woods to get away from their everyday lives in order to focus on writing new songs. Hoping to walk away from the trip with new tunes that will score them their big break, they instead find themselves in the middle of a nightmare beyond comprehension. | ||||
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| THE REVIEW In DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, frustrated with the musical direction of his band, Nick brings the rest of the Pop band to a wooded area, which he would come to in his childhood days. Nicks hope is that the band will use the time away from their everyday lives, to become inspired, as they right songs for a demo, that they hope will win them a record deal. To put further emphasis on why they have come, Nick confiscates everyone's cell phone, and has them swear off any sort of outside contact. However, as night falls, a few of the guys' girlfriends arrive, in addition to some of their friends. Although this upsets Nick a great deal, the right on the band continues on with a night of fun and music, which causes Nick to eventually come around. However, the fun time is soon comes to an end in an abrupt manner, once a masked killer, armed with a sledgehammer, arrives on the scene to claim victims one by one. When the screener for DON'T GO IN THE WOODS came to me, I was kind of excited. Not only is it the feature length directing debut, of an actor whom admire in Vincent D'Onofrio( of "Law and Order" fame), but it was supposedly some sort of lose remake of a film that I hated, James Bryan's 1981 slasher comedy, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS...ALONE!. Prior to seeing this film, all that I could do was just hope that this film, would in some way improve on the atrocious original. Although I am not a huge fan of remakes in general, I do like when studios do decide to remake a film that was not very good to begin with. That was the case here, so that was how my expectations were going into this film. So with that in mind, imagine my overall surprise, when came to discovering the nature of the film. Of course, I did know that this film, was indeed a Horror MUSICAL from the beginning, but I have to admit, that this film is definitely, a strange one. While the '81 original was also strange, and reeked of bad acting, direction and effects, both films are in since very different, but as equally as strange. DON'T GO IN THE WOODS (2010) starts off decently, but then again, the entire film has this weird vibe to it, as it feels as though it is some sort of, of-the-wall, lost slasher that was made sometime in the '80s. I must bring out into the open that the musical material in the film, dominates the majority of what we see and here in the film's 83 minutes. Although the film tailors itself as a slasher film, it's slasher elements are like a footnote to everything else. The abundance of music and sing-song lyrics, create a very noticeable imbalance for all that the film offers, or at least tries to. For example, just when the audience begins to become invested into the horror side of the film, the film, all of the sudden switches gears, reverting back to it's musical aspect. There is just no true balance between the to sides, so in other words, when it comes to the Horror, the film fails to ever generate any type of real genuine suspense. There is no suspense, no real excitement going on, all the viewer really ever has is hope, hope that somehow, and in some way, the film will get better. But unfortunately, it never does, as everything lets up to a very predictable outcome, and with an ending that seems to have left many a viewer scratching their heads(myself included). While the film as a whole is pretty bad, I must talk a little about the film's music, which is mostly what the film basis itself on. Although the music too, is not that great, it does create a few comedy moments, whether they be intentional or not. The band which is the film's subject is a pop Emo band, which if I had to compare, i'd say that they reminded me most of PLAIN WHITE Ts. They songs sang and strummed out here all focus on heartache, handicaps, death and even the apocalypse being on the horizon. The lyrical content of these original tracks is cheesy, and the way in which they are delivered is unintentionally funny. But with all of this said about this aspect of the film, I admit that some of the melodies of the songs are catchy, whether you want them to be on not. The truth is that personally I am not a hater of musicals, and that there are actually some that I do enjoy(I am no ashamed to say that I like "Glee"), however, I just felt that the two genres, Horror and musical, were not meshed well in this case, as there was just too much of one thing going on here, thus creating an uneven product. There was just not enough Horror, not enough suspense, and definitely not enough of those crazy kills that tend to make the popular slashers in the genre the most memorable. | ||||
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| GORE
METER 2.5/10 A severed limb, ones face bashed in, a "keyboard impalment", and other instances of blood splatter. | ||||
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 4.5/10 Some low key suspense, however the film is filled with original pop songs. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM One must still give DON"T GO IN THE WOODS some credit for being something that is at least different. The Horror Musical does not happen to often, and this film had all the potential in the world to be something great. Unfortunately it fails for the most part as it does not attempt to maintain an equal effort. Through out the film, the cheesy song content increases, and do the Horror content becomes more funny than scary, you just cannot have someone sing while bloody and running for their lives. Then again, maybe this film's intention was in fact to be funny? Who knows? All I know is that I didn't find it to be such, instead, it ending up being weird, and as I said, of the wall. I still like D'Onofrio, but I see this as a missed opportunity for him. Here you had a villain that looks decent enough, why not do something with him, the least you could do is explain him to your audience. Check this one out if you must, however please note that I feel as though it is more a miss than it is a hit, pun intended. Vincent D'Onofrio's DON'T GO IN THE WOODS is now playing on VOD services woldwide, and is playing in both, New York and Los Angeles in a limited theatrical run. | ||||
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