Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

sveetvred Wow, talk about captivating...that's just what agnes bruckner is in this film...and with a strong supporting cast.thanks to comet TV, my fave channel now, i'm getting to watch some pretty obscure stuff.this film kept the suspense level high, with not much horror involved. which was a good stable sold mix.i felt the ending was a bit too 'easy'...i mean, i was trying to figure out after the movie ended if the witches wanted to be killed, or they were trying to sacrifice the main character.so, yeah it was a little disappointing. i felt there should have been much more intensity during the ending conflict.especially as the main witch lie there waiting to be axed and says 'so gifted'. this threw me way off as to what was happening. and the main character's mother...was she a witch also? idk.even more confusing...the trees weren't burnt down. does that mean the witches are now back in the woods? i thought that's what they were trying to escape from in the first place.as i said, then ending was full of contradiction, at least my own mind.but a good flick nonetheless.enjoy.

Leofwine_draca THE WOODS is at least a film with a slightly different atmosphere to distinguish it from the more mundane glut of teen horror films currently popular with the masses. This one is set in the 1960s, has an isolated girl's school as is setting, and is for the most part a subtle, eerie film that works hard on atmosphere rather than needless death sequences and moronic teen humour. It's also a virtual remake of the Dario Argento classic SUSPIRIA, as the lead finds that her new school holds dark secrets: namely, most of the staff are witches, eager to bump off their students in the name of black magic...It goes without saying that this isn't a patch on the Argento movie. Comparisons between the film just aren't worth it, as this is the lesser effort in every respect. However, it is a fairly good movie that does well building up some good suspense, and for the most part the literate script works hard to stop things descending into predictability. There are a few missteps here and there: the lead character isn't very sympathetic, and while Agnes Bruckner's acting isn't bad, she fails to make her in the least bit likable. Angsty and peed off, yes, but not likable. Still, there's a bonus in the form of supporting actor Bruce Campbell, who has been away from the genre far too long: he doesn't have a great deal to work with in the 'protective father' role, but he does get to have some fun and do a little ass-kicking along the way, so it's not all bad. Kudos too to Patricia Clarkson, whose sinister headmistress is the film's most interesting character.The witchcraft elements are fairly well handled and despite the presence of some of that horrendous MTV-style super-fast editing in the horror sequences, they are genuinely frightening on occasion. I could have done without the resort to some lame CGI menace near the climax (the killer roots, while looking good for CGI, are still so obviously CGI) but then the filmmakers make up for it with some hack 'n' slash fun with an axe for the gore fans. This isn't a great film, no, but it's okay for what it's worth.

venusboys3 Yes, The Woods looks great, has decent performances... and, at its core, is a nasty little story about haunted trees. A dark little fairy tale. Too bad the director/writer/editor/whoever felt like they needed to toss in loads of misdirection and 'red herrings' to make the story seem more complex than it really was. It ends up being a mess... a pretty mess... with Bruce Campbell in it... but still a mess. Yes, it's obvious what's going on... no, I wasn't confused... but I was annoyed that the folks making it kept TRYING to confuse me. The story isn't deep or complex... stop trying to make me think it is.I think the people who made this should be sat down and force fed viewings of Rosemary's Baby and Suspiria... since those are the sorts of movies they seemed to be emulating, badly.

Raul Faust It's one of those hard movies to rate: it has some suspenseful moments but doesn't satisfy.The lack of originality in this movie is absurd: it's a mix between "The Village", "Blair Witch Project" and "Dead End". Why choosing the character's name as Heather since it's the same name as "BWP" main actress? Also, the background sound sounded like a mermaid, not a witch. The good part of this film is that we never know who are the real witches and why they're doing this. Also we don't know if Heather and Marcy are having an affair, which is interesting for a mysterious movie. But the plot had to be more original and less repetitive to make me not roll my eyes for a dozen times.