A variety of horror flicks that take place in the woods. So which one of these would I recommend?
THE DAWN (2006)
I guess you could say this indie loaded with college students of color going on a field trip with their handsome professor could be considered an urban horror…in the woods? There is an agonizing hip hop instrumental that plays relentlessly throughout the film, not only during montages, but even during horror moments. Ugh!
It doesn’t really matter, because I wouldn’t recommend checking this one out even if you have prime. A few promising moments don’t deliver, we’re left with what is predominantly filler dialogue and way too long montages of driving, hiking, and screaming.
Of note? There are open lesbians in the group. The one guy they all don’t like is a cutie with a gorgeous nose. He’s could massage my prostate with that big honker all night long.
The kids find one friend strapped up in the woods and it’s a gory mess.
And the best scene—that goes disappointingly nowhere—has the teacher shirtless in the downward position, having some sort of spastic voodoo attack.
HELL GIRL (2019)
I don’t know why I sit through all these movies. I guess it could be argued that this is slightly different than all the other ghost hunter movies out there. But the unique part is a forehead slapper.
Ghost hunters go to help Tom Sizemore cleanse his house in the woods of ghosts.
They occasionally get terrorized by a girl ghost. A seductive woman keeps showing up and saying mysterious things.
And when it all comes down to it, there’s a battle between family members who have been dead since the 1800s but are still around, some of them ghosts, some alive, one of them a twin of the ghost girl from the 1800s. I seriously did not understand this film.
SMILE (2009)
Friends on a road trip lose their camera. Not wanting to miss a moment of the fun, they accept a free Polaroid camera from shopkeeper Armand Assante.
I would say I don’t know what year this is supposed to be because they don’t have phones with cameras, but they do eventually use a tablet to look up Assante on the Internet. They learn of all his evil doings, which makes you wonder why he’s still roaming free with his story and his pictures all over the web.
They go into the woods, they start dying, they discover anyone who has a photo taken with the camera dies, and they continue dying.
I guess this is a supernatural slasher, because at one point a rogue shovel floats through the air to kill someone.
There’s really nothing here that you haven’t seen in better movies.
BETWEEN THE TREES (2018)
This is one of those movies you watch and ponder what the hell actually went on. At the same time you could predict most of the major aspects of the film—you’ll know who is bad from the start, you’ll know who’s going to survive, and you’ll even know what’s about to happen in the final frame—yet you’re oddly satisfied by what it delivers.
It’s a glorious 73 minutes long, yet still burns slowly in a good, tension-building way.
Sausage fest time! A bunch of guys goes to hang at a cabin in the woods (that mysteriously has strings of lights on the porch when they get there, yet no one question why).
Things begin immediately with a gay joke during the ride, some gay panic comments, and the guys taking jabs at each other’s masculinity. Is this seriously what straight guys do when they’re around each other? Derogatory attacks on their friends’ manliness to make themselves feel more like a man? I was hoping they actually give each other blowjobs and have circle jerks. Imagine how much more civil and less obsessed with guns men would be if they relieved stress by busting each other’s nuts when they can’t get any from females…
The guys hunt, they play poker, they hear screams in the woods, then the weird shit hits.
Somehow, the movie confusingly becomes a hybrid of Wrong Turn and an average men find their savage sides in the woods movie. But the most unexpected part is the sudden humorous moment at the very last second.
I’d definitely check this one out if you’re looking for something a little different.
