boring as hell

Rating: 1/10 (13 April 2005)

This movie was a brilliant marketing gimmick. I give the gimmick a 10. I actually knew people who bought that it was based on a true story, that the footage was real. And for these people, the movie must have been terrifying. There's a difference between a real documentary and a fake one, and this looked almost like the real thing. But we forgive a real documentary for shoddy camera-work, boring dialogue, etc, because it's real. And if anything compelling had happened here, I would have forgiven this movie for those same faults too. But...
A brilliant movie it was not. It was, in fact, a terrible movie. The filmmakers just tried too hard to make it look real. As a result, we do get some decent acting, but if you're looking for a real plot, look elsewhere. The story just rambles along at an extremely slow pace. We get mysteries throughout, and a few minor shudders, and there was a spookiness to the cinematography, but the way it was shot was just too claustrophobic to be compelling. As far as the story, it was basically a standard "kids lost in the woods" movie with all the clichés attached. They lose the map! They're going around in circles! Ooh, there are scary things happening outside the tent while they're sleeping! And those weird twig things! By the end of the movie, we're hungry for some kind of explanation as to what is going on. We never get it. What we get is an extremely cryptic ending that is too esoteric to make sense. I thought the sequel was supposed to explain what was going on?!? The sequel just went in a completely different direction, and it didn't make any sense either! By the way, I thought this was supposed to be a trilogy. Where's the third movie? Like I said, the acting isn't bad, but it's not great either; they actually look like film students doing a bad student film. The dialogue is awful. The movie is boring. And it doesn't make any sense. I think a lot of people were lulled in by that cutting-edge marketing gimmick, and maybe ended up confusing the gimmick for the movie itself. That's the only explanation I can see for people liking this movie. In my opinion, it was a con, and should have been a bomb. Instead, it was one of the most successful independent movies of all time, and because no real care went into the making, possibly the most profitable. I'm not going to down you if you liked this movie; I felt like I wasted my time watching it, and would have actually been angry if I had paid to see it in the theater.