Allow yourself to be freaked....

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 1999)

I saw this movie on the opening day at 1:45 in the afternoon in a sold-out theater in an audience of college film students. Okay...you know what? I was scared. Yes, I realize how some people could definitely be disappointed in this film. It's a low-budget movie with great ideas and minimal resources...but I thought that it was GREAT. It's a BRILLIANT concept. Now that the film is becoming more and more hyped, I KNOW that there is going to be some serious backlash about this film not being scary enough...but I've just got to say: ALLOW yourself to be sucked into the idea...you're lost in the middle of the woods...you hear voices and screaming outside of your tent...you get progressively more hungry, tired, and frantic as the days wear on and you lose hope...it's SCARY!!! I think that the best part of this film is the way in which we get to see these three characters just absolutely LOSE IT. Now, granted, sitting in a movie theater surrounded by tons of people, knowing that I would be able to go out into the bright sunlight when the movie was over....yes, that makes the movie less scary. But the point for me was just the fact that these three kids just completely lose their minds and their humanity in the middle of the woods. Just think about it...these three kids disappear and then a year later you find their footage: it's not about scary stick figures hanging in trees or creepy voices in the middle of the night. It's about three kids completely losing their humanity and desperately searching for ANYTHING to cling to. I thought that the ending was terrifying. And I thought that it was terrifying not only due to the creepy situation they find themselves in at the end of the movie...but even more so because these kids were just sick with terror and had lost all hope!!! It's great! Go see it! ALLOW yourself to be sucked in and THINK ABOUT IT!!! I give it 8 out of 10.