If you go down to the woods tonight...

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2009)

I'd heard rather a lot of hype about this film before seeing it, I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, on the one hand few films live up to their hype on the other without that hype I probably wouldn't have seen it at all. While I don't think it is the "scariest movie ever made" it is certainly very creepy and makes the viewer feel that they are lost in the woods with the protagonists.
At the start of the film we are told that three students, Heather, Josh and Mike, disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville (formerly called Blair) in Maryland while investigating the local legend and that a year later their equipment had been found and what we are then shown is the film recorded by them before their disappearance. Once the three of them have joined up and got their equipment together they head to Burkittsville where they interview some of the locals about the legends before heading off in to the woods to film the sites where the events in the legend are alleged to have taken place. All goes fairly well until the trio try to return to their car, while camping over night they here strange noises outside their tent and the next day despite following the map they don't manage to find their car. The same happens the next day and the next etc. as the days progress they get more and more distressed, especially as whatever is outside the tent each night is leaving strange items in the trees and messing with their equipment.
I have tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum as the less you know about what happens in the woods the more disturbing the film is likely to be. If you are put off horror films by gore then this is a safe film to watch as there is almost no gore, the scares all come from being lost while some one or something is messing with your head. The way that it is filmed also adds to the atmosphere, quite often the camera is pointing and something away from the action or in the night scenes there is no image at all, just sound. The acting was very natural probably because most of it was unscripted.