An odd pastiche that oddly works.

Rating: 8/10 (6 August 1999)

An odd pastiche that oddly works. Excluding the terrifying prologue, the movie breaks down into four sections. The first is a taut psychological thriller. The second is a well-made, though essentially traditional, horror story with just a bit of gore. The third makes an odd, and inadequately explained, transformation of the horror story into a rather sentimental and somewhat new-age-ish tale of redemption. The last is a "surprise" ending that should not be a surprise to anyone who has carefully noted (1) certain incongruities in part two and (2) the nature of the transformation in part three. Even if it is deduced in advance, the ending is very well presented and largely satisfying.
Despite the constant shifts in tone, the movie for the most part carries the viewer along with it. The production is pure Hollywood, but Hollywood at its best; for example, the scary bits are announced with the same sort of camerawork and sound effects that Hitchcock polished to perfection long ago. The acting is uniformly good. One surprise is that Bruce Willis can act. His young more-or-less co-star handles a somewhat disconcerting variety of moods and mannerisms remarkably well. Somehow, after all this, it's hard to be scared of the woods.