Director: Jack Cox
Year: 2026
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Heading into the woods, a family documents their trip deep into the wilderness for their future enjoyment, bringing them into a section of the woods cursed with a malevolent entity that has affected others over the years and entrapping them in the same nightmarish scenario.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat flawed found-footage genre effort. Among the positive points here is the immensely likable and overall workable setup that allows this one to offer some chilling and worthwhile factors. The starting point of the film, which focuses on the family going out into the woods and filming themselves camping in the area, which is soon found to be the home of a strange animal that no one knows anything about and are brought to a spot in the woods where they’re attacked by this mysterious being that the camera can’t really capture, gives everything a rather solid starting point. A second plot thread, involving the priest investigating these seemingly unrelated incidents involving demonic possession of this young girl, adds some more context to what’s going on and gives the film some intriguing backstory on the central location where everything takes place. The finale, where it manages to bring everything together when it comes around to offering up the connecting tissue behind it all, is really well handled as it makes the several previous stories focus their points across rather nicely.
When it comes to the actual haunts and scares within here, this is a bit of a mixed bag, as it has a lot to like but also some immensely troubling factors. The opening in the woods has some genuinely creepy ideas focusing on the voices and whispers affecting the son, starting to come true when everything is finally brought together for the gruesome conclusion, yet there are some immensely unbelievable and just plain cheesy antics to get there involving him constantly backtalking and ignoring his parents to get what he wants to do when he wants to do it. This causes the section to be enjoyable when they’re being attacked, but somewhat hard to swallow when trying to sympathize with the family. Likewise, the third segment here has so little purpose, with it being so short, unconnected to the rest of the stories, and is barely even referenced at all, that it could’ve been trimmed out without losing anything else, and when it’s all added together with some obvious and cheesy low-budget limitations involving the weak CGI bloodshed for the gore effects, is what brings this down in the end.
Overview: **.5/5
An intriguing if overall flawed found-footage feature, this one could’ve been much better than it is, as there are some likable elements here that get wiped out by some big drawbacks. Those with an appreciation for this style of genre fare or who are hardcore found-footage fanatics will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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