Here we go, a walkin' in the woods

Rating: 6/10 (22 July 2005)

By now, everyone and their grandma has heard about this super-cheap project that ended up making millions upon millions in the summer of '99. Now it's out on video and that's where it really belongs: it was mostly shot on HI8 Video, with some 16mm film. Watching it, especially the beginning (before the 3 characters go into the woods), I am reminded of similar video footage I took on a couple of past road trips; you know what I mean? - stuff taken from a moving car; people walkin' around not really doing anything. The difference is, of course, I didn't make $140+ million off of my stuff. Silly me. As a film, it's a mixed bag. The 1st 20 or so minutes, as I mentioned, are nothing more than a boring home movie. But then, the tension starts to mount - and I'm not really sure why: is it the jerky hand-held camera movement? The 'real world' sound effects? After all, one is supposedly watching real stuff, not a make-believe reel movie. That was the whole hook of the project - the thing that drew so many people to it (I believe the technique is called 'cinema verite' - a French term for realism). And, true to form, the film doesn't really 'end' - it just stops. There are no spelled-out answers in the end, forcing audiences to make their own conclusions (I did). But, also in the end, I don't think this will take its place among classics such as Night of the Living Dead[68] or even The Evil Dead[81], because the thing's a triumph of marketing, not cult horror. It's clever, it's creepy, it's unique. But it's a manipulation designed to draw grosses, not gross out people in a new exciting way (the R rating is for foul language). OK, I bought the DVD.