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Good start, but then it gets ruined

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Extremely creepy, but somewhat unsatisfactory horror melodrama. The film has some marvelous special effects sequences, but the plot is not only confusing but far too way out to hold our full attention, despite excellent work by a hard-working cast led by Agnes Bruckner, Patricia Clarkson and Bruce Campbell.A lot of money was spent on the film too, but a large budget and good acting cannot go the full distance when the screenplay is both impossibly hazy and totally unbelievable.Admittedly, the movie starts well, but all the promise inherent in the early scenes is virtually lost when the screenplay decides to go all out on horror and elaborate special effects and never mind veresimilitude!.Available on an excellent UA DVD. (Take no notice of the exceptionally bad back cover, half of which is so messy, it is virtually impossible to read).

THE WOODS is at least a film with a slightly different atmosphere to distinguish it from the more mundane glut of teen horror films currently popular with the masses. This one is set in the 1960s, has an isolated girl's school as is setting, and is for the most part a subtle, eerie film that works hard on atmosphere rather than needless death sequences and moronic teen humour. It's also a virtual remake of the Dario Argento classic SUSPIRIA, as the lead finds that her new school holds dark secrets: namely, most of the staff are witches, eager to bump off their students in the name of black magic...It goes without saying that this isn't a patch on the Argento movie. Comparisons between the film just aren't worth it, as this is the lesser effort in every respect. However, it is a fairly good movie that does well building up some good suspense, and for the most part the literate script works hard to stop things descending into predictability. There are a few missteps here and there: the lead character isn't very sympathetic, and while Agnes Bruckner's acting isn't bad, she fails to make her in the least bit likable. Angsty and peed off, yes, but not likable. Still, there's a bonus in the form of supporting actor Bruce Campbell, who has been away from the genre far too long: he doesn't have a great deal to work with in the 'protective father' role, but he does get to have some fun and do a little ass-kicking along the way, so it's not all bad. Kudos too to Patricia Clarkson, whose sinister headmistress is the film's most interesting character.The witchcraft elements are fairly well handled and despite the presence of some of that horrendous MTV-style super-fast editing in the horror sequences, they are genuinely frightening on occasion. I could have done without the resort to some lame CGI menace near the climax (the killer roots, while looking good for CGI, are still so obviously CGI) but then the filmmakers make up for it with some hack 'n' slash fun with an axe for the gore fans. This isn't a great film, no, but it's okay for what it's worth.

Yes, The Woods looks great, has decent performances... and, at its core, is a nasty little story about haunted trees. A dark little fairy tale. Too bad the director/writer/editor/whoever felt like they needed to toss in loads of misdirection and 'red herrings' to make the story seem more complex than it really was. It ends up being a mess... a pretty mess... with Bruce Campbell in it... but still a mess. Yes, it's obvious what's going on... no, I wasn't confused... but I was annoyed that the folks making it kept TRYING to confuse me. The story isn't deep or complex... stop trying to make me think it is.I think the people who made this should be sat down and force fed viewings of Rosemary's Baby and Suspiria... since those are the sorts of movies they seemed to be emulating, badly.

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.