Don't expect to be scared....

Rating: 3/10 (5 August 1999)

I was very dissappointed in this movie, and, it seemed, so was everyone else in the theatre. The movie ended and the theatre was immediately filled with people saying "that's it?!?" "that wasn't scary" "what a bunch of hype" and comments in the same vein. This movie seemed to have such potential, but it was just never realized. There were scenes that *began* to be scary, but they were few and far between and too short to ever cross over the line to *actually* scary. If you have never been camping, perhaps this movie will affect you differently, but basically, there is nothing inherently frightening about the woods in the day light (where most of the film is shot). Even the *characters* weren't frightened in the day... tired, hungry, irritable, frightened of being *lost*, yes, but any "fear" they displayed at the supernatural nighttime activities faded as soon as the sun came up.
The best scenes were the night scenes, when the screen is black or the only lighting was the light from their camera, but even these did not cause enough genuine fear to sustain any sort of feeling that this was a frightening movie that you were watching.
Worth seeing if you are a fan of independent films, but there are many better ones to see.
Some very praise worthy method acting took place in this film, but scary it is not. After reading all the praise posted so far, I have no idea what the theatre full of people and I missed during our showing, but I wish I would have saved the $8 and waited to see this one on Encore.