Director: David Lipper
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Trying to unlock some repressed memories, a man agrees to join his girlfriend and some friends on a trip to the woods where his parents died to help it through, but when a group of thieves arrives and a strange series of deaths strikes them causes him to believe a local legend is responsible.
Review:
This was a pretty abysmal effort without much to really like about it. Most of the film's positives are based on the final half here where the film manages to introduce some liveliness and energy into what's going on. With the build-up before this featuring a series of strange disappearances and incidents surrounding both groups being taken out one by one, the full reveal of who's in the woods responsible for everything brings about some admittedly enjoyable chases and encounters in the woods that produce a couple of brutal and graphic kills that come about. With the overall approach taken here from this managing to offer up the kind of cheesy twist that this type of style is always used to do but still being quite fun for it overall, this one does have a few bright spots for it.
There are some pretty big issues to be had with the film. The main drawback of the film is a wholly bland and unnecessarily dull pace that just drags the film out far longer than it really should. Despite introducing a great concept involving the repressed memories and the strange monster in his visions, very little of the film tends to evolve exploring that as the main section of the trip entails the sexual exploits of their friends or teasing each other about the situation which isn't helped by then introducing the group of thieves into the scenario for what should be merely for extra figures in the body count. Instead, none of this really devotes the kind of time it should to indulging the creature action it set itself up to be.
That also manages to bring up the fact that the creature here is such a mystery that it's hard to feel truly invested or scared in what's going on. Since the conflicting storylines are given centerstage here and very little of the creature is given beyond a minor bit of lip-service about a creature in the area, there's not much of a chance here to get to know much about the creature's origins or purpose which simply makes a reveal that happens at the end seemingly contradict what's been known at the very beginning as that information doesn't really make the repressed memory angle feel like a complete cheat.
On top of that, there are also plenty of issues here in its presentation that just highlight the criminally low budget this is working with. As nearly all of the night-time scenes are plainly shot day-for-night with a lame blue filter over it, not only are these scenes outright embarrassing but it also makes it way too hard to tell what's going on which makes it rather difficult to understand why they would be set at night to begin with. As well, with a lot of foreshadowing about the twist at the end based on the creatures' killing methods and tactics long before it comes to light and some direly unfunny intended comedy shoehorned into the film, there's quite a lot to dislike here that brings it down.
Overview: 0.5/5
A truly dire genre effort without much of anything going for it, there’s a whole host of reasons to avoid this one and not too much to really like which leaves this to be incredibly disappointing really only give it a shot if you’re an ardent fan of this type of feature while just about all others should really heed caution if not outright avoid it.
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