RELEASED IN 2006 and directed by Lucky McKee, "The Woods" chronicles events in 1965 New England when a troubled teen (Agnes Bruckner) is dropped off at a spooky remote boarding school for girls by her estranged parents (Bruce Campbell & Emma Campbell). Weird, witchy things ensue. Patricia Clarkson plays the dean while Lauren Birkell and Rachel Nichols play fellow students, one nice and the other mean. This is a mystery/horror flick that combines "Suspiria" (1977) with elements of "Carrie" (1976) and "The Ruins" (2008) or "Man-Thing" (2005) (yes, I realize "The Ruins" came out later; I'm just trying to give people an idea of what the movie's like). The haunting atmosphere and the Montreal location are very good, as well as the unsettling creepiness. So the plot is a winner, the film looks good and there's an effective darkness, if that's your thang. Unfortunately, the story is underwhelming. It's too ambiguous and feels incomplete, like a half hour of events were cut from the runtime. The hints of levitation and telekinetic abilities don't amount to much, nor do the leaves on a bed.The characters are either underdeveloped or unlikable, except for maybe the protagonist (Bruckner). All we know about Heather is that she recently set fire to something and there's enmity between her and her self-absorbed mother. The father is a pushover. We don't learn much about them or anyone else at the academy. Marcy provokes pity while Samantha is too over-the-top as the villain. You're more curious about WHY she's so mean than anything else. With all the young females available, the filmmakers drop the ball by not taking advantage of these resources (and I'm not tawkin' bout nudity or sleaze). The emotionless deliveries of the all-female faculty don't help, but I realize they were written that way to create a sense of oddness and it works. The witchcraft elements are decidedly subdued, which I liked; the focus is on the formidableness of the forest itself (hence the title). Speaking of which, the woods F/X in the last act are well done. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 31 minutes and was shot at McGill University, Montréal, Québec. WRITER: David Ross. GRADE: C

"The Woods" is a good horror movie that has a great sense of humor. Ignore the low rating.There is a mutant strain of IMDb 'critics' who just live to crap on people's work. You can see their handiwork on classic movies that clearly deserve a 9 approaching 10 but are sandbagged by these idiots into the 7s.While 'The Woods' may not be a classic, it is an entertaining movie with good direction, good acting and good visual story telling. It also doesn't take itself as seriously as most more recent independent Horror movies do.It's the story of a young rebellious girl who gets sent to a girl's school and finds out all is not as it seems. Lucky McKee directs and I think he has a future as a high level Indy Horror filmmaker.It gets 4 points from me right off the bat just by having Bruce Campbell playing a pivotal role in it.Don't listen to the haters. Give it a try.

There is merit in interesting failures or compromised visions. I actually value these more than a great masterpiece that has been carefully tinkered with and polished from a million angles to be perfect - that is because I value so much the spontaneous, the incomplete, the asymmetry that invites we share a little of ourselves to complete it. It is a contract such as the other kind of film cannot stoop down to grant.So I was eagerly awaiting an interesting failure with this, as most viewers have noted. The tropes are ordinary: an old boarding school is the setting, there is talk of shady pasts, ominous woods whisper to us with the promise of secret horrors. Several reviewers have noted the resemblance with Suspiria; but that is the thing, Suspiria was extraordinary in every aspect, it was unlike anything you could envision prior to watching. It excelled, or over-indulged if you will.This is ordinary stuff. The filmmaker tries, not to take that away from him. He clearly wants to evoke atmospheres, to haunt us down dark corridors. But the mystery we're meant to be shrouded with we've seen before and it's easy to see through. The atmospheres are competent but ordinary. Aesthetically professional but not sumptuous.Witches? Mysterious disappearances? Conspiracy? Sure, you'll get all that as promised but not one step more imaginatively dressed so that we may tingle at the prospect of undressing them.Another comparison, again re: budding female sexuality swallowed by a deceivingly idyllic world: Picnic at Hanging Rock. This is extraordinary in the opposite way from Argento, it teases us with outlines we want to venture in unraveling, with silences we want to hold our breaths to listen. So our every effort to permeate the abstract is its own fruitful result, allowing us to assimilate - opposed to logically coming to understand - what the filmmaker wants to convey.So this is middling in all these things that should have, not to mention more, at least on a basic level allowed us to inhabit the world of the film. There is no fertile abstraction to speak of. It is competent but ordinary.

It's one of those hard movies to rate: it has some suspenseful moments but doesn't satisfy.The lack of originality in this movie is absurd: it's a mix between "The Village", "Blair Witch Project" and "Dead End". Why choosing the character's name as Heather since it's the same name as "BWP" main actress? Also, the background sound sounded like a mermaid, not a witch. The good part of this film is that we never know who are the real witches and why they're doing this. Also we don't know if Heather and Marcy are having an affair, which is interesting for a mysterious movie. But the plot had to be more original and less repetitive to make me not roll my eyes for a dozen times.