The Woods (2006)

If you have the patience to watch The Woods then there is a lot to gain. This is not your usual witch affair and contains slow boiling intrigue and great storytelling. The pace is a bit too slow and there is too much emphasis on thriller rather than suspense for my taste. Still a very good psychological film for the patient among us.

Sent to a remote boarding-school, a troubled teen girl gradually comes to believe that the faculty are centuries-old-witches looking to utilize her burgeoning paranormal powers to restore their coven's powers and tries to save the other girls at the school.For the most part this one wasn't all that bad and had enough to like overall here. What really seems to help this one quite a bit is the rather exceptional build-up that occurs here which comes from several impressive elements brought forth in here. One of the better elements featured for that is the ghostly action and visions she experiences that set-up the idea of what's happening, with the first vision of the ghostly roommate scaring her away with the quick attack and self-disfigurement, the early scene in the woods where they see the strange figures and the visitations to the different sections of the school on her hunt for answers throughout offer some great parts that really paints up the mystery of what's going on. Likewise, their treatment of her and how her visions and voices in her head finish that off is a rather nice and enjoyable aspect as well with plenty to like overall here. The school is pretty creepy and is presented as a large, foreboding building that is hundreds of years old filled with vines growing through all the windows and across the walls, the large, spacious rooms, huge interiors and old-school Gothic vibe is effectively used and conveys a really effective atmosphere. It paints a quite effective and memorable location, and it's used to it's most effective. The other part that really delivers is the titular woods. The aura exuded from their presence is undeniable, and they're the best part of the film dominating every scene they're featured in as spooky voices coming out of the woods lends some great suspense scenes early on. The other part that works is the wild finale, with the impressive car accident, the race to get to the ceremonial pit in the woods and the crazy axe-swinging fun that really gives this a strong finishing mark. While these issues make this enjoyable, there's a few others here that hold this back. One of the biggest problems here is that the film has a real problem of going back on itself. So many times it repeats the same scenarios that do nothing but lose audience members by featuring such tropes as the feeling that the teachers are odd, the other students are disappearing, her chick-bully is mean or she's having odd dreams and is hearing things. This set of events are repeated with such frequency that progressing forward by having more info divulged from the flick is next to impossible. It seems like the film would be much better as a short instead of being stretched into a full-length feature, and it is filled with lots of unimportant ideas that completely work against the premise. It's redundancy is the reason why the film is pretty much the same for the first hour or so and that hurts the fear quota of the flick. The film also suffers from a big flaw in complete and utter boredom as it creeps along so slowly without anything to keep you watching. Worst of all, the movie just isn't scary. There's a couple suspenseful scenes and lots of spooky whispering, but that's about it. These here do manage to hold it back.Rated R: Violence and Graphic Language.

'The woods' harbours plenty of clichés, that is undeniable, but that's not all - at all. Director Lucky McKee has a fine sense of style and the cinematography is more than decent. And there are plenty of developments in the story to keep the viewers on or at least near the edge of their seats. It takes a good while then, but the finale is pretty good, even if the mystery genre dominates the horror genre.Agnes Bruckner delivers a fine performance as well, there are some pretty neat special effects, but the two predecessors are still better than this one. I haven't mentioned the role of horror icon Bruce Campbell yet, but that's merely because it's rather small.A big 6 out of 10 for 'The woods', which equals 7 out of 10 here. It's been a while since I saw this one, so a fresh viewing is in order (which goes for all of McKee's work, actually - come to think of it, I should try 'Roman' by Angela Bettis again soon, too).

The front cover of The Woods reads 'And Bruce Campbell,' so I watched this. Bruce 'the chin' Campbell is a legend, providing one silly, tongue-in-cheek performance in horror films after another. However, it's worth noting he's barely in this and, when he is, he's not saying much.The Woods is about Heather - a young girl who gets sent to a private school by her (seemingly naturally) evil mother and silent father (Bruce Campbell incidentally). There, she gets picked on by a clichéd bully and starts to wonder if her teachers have ulterior motives for the pupils.The teachers mainly stand around in groups, facing the same direction and staring - always a sign that they're up to something. One occasionally twitches. This may be trying to add 'character' to them, but if you can watch without laughing you're a more composed person than me.The Woods is like a kind of remake of Italian horror classic 'Suspira,' as it's about a girl starting a new school run by witches. Soon, Heather's classmates start disappearing (luckily their parents don't seem to ever bother much that their children have vanished without a trace and nor to the police). The film's pretty slow, but deliberately so, doing its best to built tension and get to know the characters.There's nothing particularly wrong with The Woods, apart from the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new. If you've seen a reasonable amount of horror films, you've basically seen this. It's nicely directed, the sets are fitting and it picks up pace towards the end. I just felt it was too little too late.Give me Evil Dead any day.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/