The Barrens (2012)

This movie really had the potential to be gripping but it fails on so many levels. The scene where the father tells his version of the legend is possibly the best scene of the movie, had that level of intensity been kept up all movie it would maybe have been scary.The Jersey Devil itself was also disappointing, it was so over the top that its not even scary.Many of the failures can be forgiven due to it not being a big budget movie but the ending really killed the entire movie for me.Really? They all just get eaten? She says sorry to the man who tried to kill her and her son? COME ON!A little mystery at the end would have been great.

If you're looking for a standard lost in the woods, scary-gory urban legend horror film, this is a pretty decent one. If you're looking for anything beyond that, you will probably find THE BARRENS quite a waste of time.Pros: --Acting, script, and cinematography are better than many films in this genre; --Makes good use of anti-climaxes and dream sequences as well as effective vagary regarding how human/inhuman the monster really is; Cons: --A lot of loose plot threads, as well as some irrelevant and derivative details, e.g., the quote I use as my title here; --Although it could be gorier--and I realize that some people like gore for its own sake--all the entrails assault the senses, and while they're really grotty, both animal and human, they all look alike; --It would be more frightening to just give quick, patchy glimpses of the monster (or not show it at all) than to give such clear shots of the crazy thing.

Hoping to reconnect together, an estranged family on a camping trip in the Pine Barrens learn the local legend involving the Jersey Devil is real when the voracious creature appears and forces the family to deal with it to escape the woods.This here is one of the more frustrating and problematic creature features around as there was a chance to do something special here. The setting here is a dark, creepy forest ripe with really terrifying layouts that are perfect for unleashing a voracious creature, it's quite a decent-looking creature with quite a chilling back-story to begin with, and there's some fun to be had when it gets the family lost in the back-part of the woods along the later half, but instead this one tends to involve a slew of increasingly bizarre and outright unnecessary subplots that make this one seem to go on forever. Adding in the usual family drama is more than enough and never really adds much new material to be influenced by this tactic, which feels like a continuation of the clichés anyway, yet the fact that there's so much extra happening going on here that the beginning to this one is so hard to get into it seems to go on forever dealing with the family issues, teen angst, the dead dog and the quest for closure about his father just makes for a tough time overall. All these subplots simply cause the actual attacks to get pushed back so much that the fun attacks in that second half come so late their inclusion is almost an afterthought and a case for being too little, too late to save this one from the potential it could've had about chasing down the revelers in the forest and them getting caught in the middle the way this starts off as, but even without this plot the beast itself and the action in the final half when he's mad and delirious do make this one somewhat interesting and save it somewhat.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

No pun intended with that summary line. The movie really sets the bar above average and tries to give you a story you can hang on to. This may be from the guy who did 3 of the Saw movies (as director, he was involved in more than those prior to directing them), but that does not mean you get to see many violent scenes here. You will mostly witness the aftermath of something.It is important for the story that this happens like that. And we're back to the story department. Either you'll like where this is going (more psychological) or you will repelled by it. The main actor has to pull quite some weight. And I think he does a good job doing so. Mia Kirshner: I almost didn't recognize her. But she does more than a decent job in this too. The ending will once again split the audience. Those that remained and watched it through that is. Not perfect, but more than a solid effort