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Taking
place in 1965, Heather is the new girl at an
all-girl's boarding school. She's only got one friend,
and due to her red hair, everyone else calls her
"fire-crotch". What's even worse is that the teachers
are very strict and it seems as if they want something
out of Heather. She slowly realizes that not everything
is at it seems at this school, and when the girls
start disappearing one by one, Heather decides to get
to the bottom of this mystery.
The Woods is an extremely over-hyped thriller about
witchcraft at a girls boarding school, located in the
middle of the forest. After having read stacks of
positive reviews for Lucky McKee's latest "horror"
flick, I was absolutely thrilled heading into this.
And while The Woods is a decent movie, it is nowhere
near as great as I had expected it to be.
Heather's parents drops her off at an all girls boarding
school for rich kids. Since her father claims to be
more wealthy than he actually is, Heather is forced to
take a test - which she passes flawlessly. It doesn't
take long before Heather starts getting into fights
with the popular girls at the school, but for some
reason, the teachers always end up blaming her. As the
days go by, Heather starts to realize that something's
wrong at the school, girls are disappearing and the
teachers are trying to cover it up. The entire movie
then leads up to a 10 minute climax where everything
is finally revealed (as if we hadn't all ready figured
it out after 5 minutes).
While The Woods has got many strengths, it's also got
many flaws, but I thought that I could begin with the
positives for once. Lucky McKee has managed to direct
this movie very skilfully and stylishly, the movie is
occasionally visually breathtaking with beautiful
cinematography and playful contrasts. The movie is also
very well acted and it's easy to root for Heather
(played by beautiful Agnes Bruckner). When it comes to
the main movie, it's got a good pace and keeps the
viewer interested enough through and through. The plot
is relatively original... well, let me rephrase that.
It's not something that you're used to seeing these
days, but it does borrow a lot from older movies,
which leads me to the negatives.
People have described this as a mixture between "Suspiria",
"Carrie", and "The Craft", and while that may very well
be a quite suitable description, I couldn't help but
comparing this to "Troll 2" at times. It's not that it's
a bad movie, it's just that it had several scenes that
just screamed "Troll 2". The movie was also incredibly
predictable. And while I appreciated the fact that it
didn't try to shock us with some ludicrous twist, I kind
of felt that when the climax FINALLY came, it was a
bit too blah ("was that it?").
In the end, The Woods is more of a drama thriller than
anything else, and it's a quite forgettable one at that
as well. Had it been made in the 80's, I'm sure this
would have become a cult movie, but as it is now, I can
actually see why this went straight to DVD. Sure, a lot
of much worse horror movies go to the theatres, but this
just didn't have the oomph in it, it was a bit bland.
It's alright for a rainy night with your mates but it
is seriously overhyped.
Not a whole lot here, an axe in shoulder, a head
cracked open and some blood, nothing much.
The soundtrack felt very appropriate and added to the
whole 60's effect. These guys obviously knew what they
were doing. There weren't any suspenseful scenes so
I can't comment on the suspense score though.
With some more suspense and some more chills, I'm sure
that The Woods could have been something really good.
But it is what is, and what it is, is unfortunately
quite bland. It's not something that you're used to
seeing these days but it's also very forgettable. Don't
get your hopes up too high as it's very overhyped.
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