In The Woods (DVD)

...of £1 some time back in WH Smith then I probably never would have purchased this DVD. It has a pretty eye catching front cover, but then when you flip it over and take a look at its reverse then there are some pretty off-putting screen takes here. The picture quality is fuzzy and surely you feel that they could have put more effort into the production of the DVD than this, but then again when it's only costing you a pound you can really have no complaints. ...
...taking a hunting trip unsurprisingly in the woods. These two men are none other than Alex Kerwood and Wayne Higley, and whilst venturing in the woods they stumble across a really quite puzzling burial site. Shocked and confused these two men start digging and it is here that they discover the skull of an unknown horned creature. Firefighters by trade, they find themselves to be in great trouble out in these woods and as it all unfolds they seek to ... more

'In The Woods' is the 2000 released film from the director Lynn Drzick. Unsurprisingly it was the last film that she directed and were it not for the fact that this film was available to me for the princely sum of £1 some time back in WH Smith then I probably never would have purchased this DVD. It has a pretty eye catching front cover, but then when you flip it over and take a look at its reverse then there are some pretty off-putting screen takes here. The picture quality is fuzzy and surely you feel that they could have put more effort into the production of the DVD than this, but then again when it's only costing you a pound you can really have no complaints. On the front of this DVD is also a comment made by someone called David Horn from 'SOD Magazine' proclaiming that this film is 'Creepier than Blair Witch Project'. I had no idea what this SOD Magazine was, but nonetheless this really captured my imagination and when I bought this DVD it had me believing that despite how shoddy the back cover was and how truly terrible the plot synopsis sounded upon the case; 'In The Woods' could possibly be a worthwhile and interesting purchase.

'In The Woods' tells the tale of two men taking a hunting trip unsurprisingly in the woods. These two men are none other than Alex Kerwood and Wayne Higley, and whilst venturing in the woods they stumble across a really quite puzzling burial site. Shocked and confused these two men start digging and it is here that they discover the skull of an unknown horned creature. Firefighters by trade, they find themselves to be in great trouble out in these woods and as it all unfolds they seek to escape from the danger that the woods now behold and it all becomes one big scramble in order to emerge from them alive and well. Some strange force of evil has been set free from the burial site within these woods, but is it ever possible now to truly escape this evil?

As the film begins the opening music is absolutely terrible and doesn't exactly lead you to hold high expectations of this release. The music lasts for a good couple of minutes before the film begins, several times it stops and starts over and it all just sounds a little disjointed. As the film itself begins the first thing you notice is that the picture quality is extremely poor. Just as evidenced on the back of the box, the picture is a little fuzzy and as those involved start to 'act', they prove themselves to be greatly inept and seemingly devoid of any acting ability whatsoever. It all sounds so scripted, none of the people cast in these roles have any real depth of ability whatsoever and instead they provide some of the worst displays of acting that I have ever before seen caught on tape. Upon a little investigation over at IMDb I was not so astonished to find that the majority of those making appearances in this film had done very little else in their acting 'careers'. Main star DJ Perry has had the most fruitful acting career of the lot having featured in a number of low budget films of which few I even knew existed. Personally I'd give jobs to none of these people, at least not as actors anyway.

It takes twenty minutes to get to the 'action' here, a full quarter of the way through the full duration of the film. Up until this point we are subjected only to the ineptness of all those cast in 'In The Woods', and I have to tell you that it's tough going even watching this far into the film. The musical score is probably the best thing about this film and even this is awful for the most part, it provides the film with a few jumpy moments but the scariness soon subsides due to the poor acting performances. Everything is all wrong about this film, it doesn't take much of a budget to produce a decent film if the elements are all right, but nothing fits together here and everything fails to impress as 'In The Woods' progresses. I wasn't much of a fan of 'The Blair Witch Project' and for me the film was not particularly creepy at all, but seriously David Horn; what were you thinking in saying that this poor excuse for a film is creepier than the multi million grossing smash hit?! I fail to think of any films that 'In The Woods' in genuinely creepier than, I'm sure they must be out there somewhere though.

The acting is without doubt a major pitfall of this film, but there can be no denying as to how poor the script for this film truly is. As the film progresses it just seems to go from bad to worse, not once did it ever manage to capture my imagination and always the film failed throughout its 80 minute run time. It's slow to get going and just when you believe that a bit of action may be about to start taking place, it turns out merely to be a false alarm and throughout this film we must suffer at the hands of some of the worst acting performances of all time. Every second of this film fails, the only reason the musical score makes this film anywhere close to jumpy at times is that you're so close to nodding off that any suddenly loud noise will always come as quite a startling shock.

I don't think that this film would be appropriate for viewing on any occasion, there is not one moment of promise contained within this film and always it is entirely disappointing. 'SOD Magazine' as it turns out is some small scale American magazine with its key focus seemingly on Death Metal music, David Horn is the magazines editor. I can only assume that David Horn must have some sort of affiliation with 'In The Woods', surely he can not have genuinely been a fan of such a terribly atrocious horror flop. For all those out there with an active interest in discovering new and exciting horror films; I strongly suggest you look elsewhere as all you will find here is a terribly put together pathetic attempt at horror from a director who has done nothing since and probably never will direct anything ever again (or at least I hope not).

Special Features are not a highlight of this DVD either, included here are only an 'Interactive Menu' and a 'Scene Index' to speak of. I don't think much of their idea of an 'Interactive Menu' either; all it consists of is a picture of what looks to be a warthog with the options underneath of 'Play Feature' and 'Chapter Select' which turn from black to purple as you hover over them.

Director: Lynn Drzick
Year of release: 2000
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Runtime: 80 mins
BBFC Rating: 15 

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