Rating: B-
Dir: Nicholas Woods
Star: Hattie Smith, Zac Titus, Nicole Dambro, William Kircher
After a strong start, this doesn’t quite manage to sustain itself. Beyond a certain point, it feels content to coast along for a while, before realizing it’s running out of time to tie everything up. It doesn’t quite get there either. Though there are certainly enough pleasures to be found along the way, to leave me satisfied. McKenzie (Smith) leads her brother Martin (Titus) and three other friends into the woods, in search of her missing sister, Marilyn. She vanished, after going off in search of… Well, unclear, though the journal (conveniently) left behind hints at portals to other worlds. McKenzie has arranged to meet Leon (Kircher), a local who contacted her, saying he has information on Marilyn.
Turns out he has information on a lot more, though McKenzie is not necessarily receptive to it initially. It is not long, however, before weird events start to unfold. There appear to be more than one, overlapping version of the forests into which the group ventures The other world is inhabited by creatures of indeterminate origin: what’s fairly certain is that they aren’t friendly. It becomes increasingly difficult for McKenzie and pals to trust the evidence of their own eyes and ears. In hindsight, it might perhaps not have been such a good idea to bring along the guy, fresh out of a psychiatric facility after a mental breakdown. Oh, well. Maybe those chains on the outside wall of the cabin will come in handy.
This works best when it’s constantly yanking the carpet out from under both the characters, and the viewer. Not so much seeing the “shadow people”, as when, for example, McKenzie has an entire conversation with another member of the group – which then might not have happened. Or the rest of the party deny one member being present at all. The results are thoroughly disorienting, yet in a delicious way that keeps you engaged. Kircher is another plus, especially in his opening scene where he has to convey information that is frankly implausible. His return to active participation towards the end of proceedings, also provides a much-needed shot of adrenaline, when it has become rather too much running around the woods.
It is a bit of a rough start too. There is an extended, “getting to know you” scene in the car, on the long drive towards their destination. The problem is, I was not convinced I necessarily wanted to know some of them. The British guy especially, who left me wanting to apologize on behalf on my entire country. Luckily, I ended up tolerating him. Towards the finish, several ideas are introduced that I would like to have seen arrive earlier and get further exploration. It’d have been better than, once more, the running about the woods. However, it’s always nice to have a new justification for why we do not forest. Concerns about cross-dimensional possessive entities will do nicely as an excuse.