Director: Jake Kopronica, Deryk Wehrley
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After going through a break-up, a couple decides to invite their friends along on a trip out into the woods to help get over the relationship and enjoy being out in nature, but as they spend time in the woods together realize that a vicious killer is stalking the woods and must get away alive.
Review:
This was an immensely fun slasher throwback. Among the better factors with this one is the rather simplistic and immersive setup that echoes the old-school tone of the genre quite well. The main setup involving the friend group trying to use the trip out to the woods to help their friend get over his broken relationship by setting him up with their other friend when they go out to the woods serves to introduce the relationships with everyone quite easily, much like the other scenes involving their friend group coming together and making the whole thing even bigger with their additional members to the group. The subsequent sideplots featured here, with a select group of locals upset at them for a misunderstanding and looking for violent revenge alongside their girlfriends and a vicious, hulking maniac stalking the woods looking for victims after a tragic accident in his youth, enhance this quite well, as the majority of the time is focused on the innocent adventures with the group trying to lift his spirits and getting these extra bits to round out the rest of the story.
With that established, the stalking scenes here come off incredibly well and generate some immensely fun moments. The opening assault on the random hikers doing their striptease in the woods or the couple in the tent is a lot of fun, setting up the brutality quite nicely while also providing some solid sleaze as well. The later scenes involving the massacre of the embarrassed locals and their girlfriends who came into the woods after looking for revenge offer a great continuation here, with the group getting taken out one by one in solid ambush sequences before the double confrontation with the girlfriends nearby is quite fun, and by the time it turns to the main group sneaking through the woods with their attempts at having fun, there's a lot to like here as well. Taking a new weapon to every encounter, with a machete, bow and arrow, throwing knives, and other weapons in a series of strong encounters, these are a lot of fun, with the different references to what's going on creating tons of panic in their plight to escape, continually getting cut off. Overall, these all make for a lot to like.
There are some issues that bring it down. The main issue here is the series of plot reveals and twists that take place in the finale that are supposed to be massive revelations that turn the whole thing around, but it happens at the very end of the film without much time to digest and take in what the whole thing is about. The whole point about the secret identity and backstory being revealed at all isn't an issue, with the story being interesting enough to give this a strong shift in priorities from what's been established before, yet it's the point is that when it's introduced, it's faulty. There's no time to digest it or try to connect what it means to the rest of the film before the film is over, and it feels like too big of a twist to be brought up this late in the film. The only other factor here, which isn't a genuine drawback but is something that can be brought up here, is that the pacing in the first half does mean that it takes a while before things start happening, focusing on the group coming together and hanging out in the woods where there's no real killer action involved that might be something to put off some viewers even without being a genuine drawback.
Overview: ****.5/5
An incredibly worthwhile and likable slasher, this one has quite a lot of enjoyable elements that manage to provide a solid throwback experience, despite a few issues that are present. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre fare, who enjoy this type of indie effort, or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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