Director: Christopher Leto
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Setting out for a special trip, a group of friends decide to reconnect and head out into the woods for a camping trip, but when they find the area they’ve chosen to camp is home to a psychotic killer and his helper looking to kill everyone that enters the woods, they must try to get away alive.
Review:
This was a fairly solid if formulaic genre effort. Among the better elements within here is the strong and likable starting point, which manages to offer up some fun, worthwhile aspects to introduce everything. Being a rather straightforward genre effort without much in the way of offering a change to the genre setup, this one presents us a workable central premise of getting the group out into the woods where the intention is to enjoy a detoxing weekend together and trying to convince the hesitant friend to go along with them which is a solid enough take for this kind of effort. With all the setup here focusing on their problems to the point of getting to know them, so the agreement to go on the camping trip is given enough character work to give the trip a motivation for happening, this all makes for a solid enough starting half to the film.
By the time the film introduces the killers into the mix, it has both a lot to like and some big stumbling blocks. The escalating sense of tension involving who’s in the woods and the group constantly being split up to look for everyone else who’s missing makes for some tense moments as the different reasons for doing so along the trip are handled to the point of making it obvious someone is in the woods with them. By the time that becomes more overt and obvious, there’s a solid energy to be had here from the stalking and chasing scenes that take place here, featuring the killer and his assistant hunting the group down, and their attempts at finding something to fight back when they start getting more overt with targeting and killing them. It’s all fun and generally enjoyable for how cheesy it all is, generating some solid gore and encounters for everything here for its bright spots.
However, there’s also a significant drawback here, as the film spends far too much time on the group's journey to the woods or the various issues they encounter, which prevent it from getting too involved in the stalking. Very little of the first hour has anything to do with the killer, as instead we’re with the group trying to get them there and using logical reasons to split them up, but not kill them, leaving the film to then rush through the stalking at the very end instead of being liberally spread throughout the running time. It could’ve helped to have some more time here since we don’t get much of a reason why they’re working together, what the whole point of it all is, or how the relationship works, so everything with them is underdeveloped without spelling anything out. Combined with the obvious low-budget limitations featured prominently within here, these all come together to lower this one somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable enough run-of-the-mill indie slasher, there’s enough to like here that keeps this intriguing enough to overcome the few slight issues that do show up. Those with an interest in this kind of indie genre effort, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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