Hidden in the Woods

The rotting remains of 2012's festival
jonbly
Braaaains!
Braaaains!
Posts: 647
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:16 pm
Location: Bristol

Hidden in the Woods

Post by jonbly »

4/10 - The 'raw' feel didn't really work for jonbly - things wandered aimlessly between intense and ludicrous, so there was never any build up of tension. Didn't help that some viewers lost interest enough to start chatting at the end.
Blandhorror
Fresh Meat
Fresh Meat
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:05 am

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Blandhorror »

I love how you refer to yourself in third person.
User avatar
morralex
Running Zombie
Running Zombie
Posts: 224
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:48 am
Contact:

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by morralex »

Words cannot describe my feelings towards this. I have never walked out of a film until today.
User avatar
MaxRenn
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 478
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:29 pm
Location: London

Hidden in the Woods

Post by MaxRenn »

Complete crap!
There is no delight the equal of dread

http://twitter.com/MaxRenn

http://letterboxd.com/maxrenn/

Blog: http://www.chrisandphilpresent.co.uk/blogs/spectacularoptical/
Blandhorror
Fresh Meat
Fresh Meat
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:05 am

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Blandhorror »

Ha! You walked out! That's the most damning review a film can have!
AdeBrown
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 316
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:58 pm
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by AdeBrown »

Somehow, the story was too similar to Seasoning House, and it suffered from that.
And from the general "low budget" nature of the second half.
Oh, the abuse cycle was not particularly well told ...

In an attempt to be positive, I quite liked that first slow motion shot of the girl running down the road.
(But at that point I also got an inkling that this film was not going to be for me.)

The only film I have ever walked out of is Boxing Helena.
My livejournal Frightfest reports from days gone by (2004 to 2011)
http://surprisetruck.livejournal.com/tag/frightfest
User avatar
sherbetbizarre
Frightfest Hardcore
Frightfest Hardcore
Posts: 1459
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:41 am
Contact:

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by sherbetbizarre »

AdeBrown wrote:The only film I have ever walked out of is Boxing Helena.
You can tell the director that on Monday :D
User avatar
EvilAsh
Running Zombie
Running Zombie
Posts: 167
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 7:15 pm

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by EvilAsh »

Just an awful film.
svengalidonut
Twitching Corpse
Twitching Corpse
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2012 6:51 pm

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by svengalidonut »

The blow job scenes were memorable.

I assumed the feral pack would ambush and murder the drug lord's family.
But these beautiful characters appear to drive off safely...
Kris
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:18 am
Location: Royton, Oldham
Contact:

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Kris »

Hmm, it was gritty and grim but it wasn't great, yet it wasn't terrible.

Story wise it could have lost the cannibal story and just played the two abandoned sisters who fought back.

Has potential but didn't fulfill it
Horror fan and avid tea drinker, to discuss the merits of all of the Friday the 13th movies over a nice cup of Assam. Contributor to http://www.realreelscares.com
User avatar
Stephen with ph
Running Zombie
Running Zombie
Posts: 111
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:48 pm
Location: The garden of England

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Stephen with ph »

This was just horrible :shock:

Not helped by the unintentionally poor subtitles...
User avatar
damatotomato
Twitching Corpse
Twitching Corpse
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: LONDON

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by damatotomato »

This film was a Grimm-like fairytale horror-crime story with a big nasty injection of wicked humour. It's no surprise Hollywood has already snapped up a remake from the original director (currently in development).

Hidden in the Woods earned a long round of applause at its Frightfest 2012 screening. A cross between Lucky McKee's The Woman, Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (without the vampires!), it featured lush and vibrant cinematography of Chilean locations and a pounding country/blues-rock score mixed in with gorgeous, atmospheric piano and appropriately synthy gloom. Ominous sound effects also punctuated the action, in the best Lynchian tradition.

The men were scumbags, drug dealers and earned delicious revenge at the hands and teeth of the two sisters who had been kept captive since birth by their brutal father, himself at the mercy of the local drug baron who, in the film's climax, comes looking for them all, and the missing stash of drugs. The dad had allowed the local crimelord (with white twirly beard and luxury villa and two daughters kept in comfort and wealth, compared to the lives of the family we follow whose lives he has ruined) to rape his own wife and possibly his daughters too (something the dad himself was also prone to attempting, in scenes that were not shown in any detail).

The rape scenes here were the cause of some controversy at Frightfest, understandably, and they are upsetting but brief, shot frenziedly and not lingering at all. I also felt they had purpose within the plot to create this montrous father figure, demonising him to the extent that the eventual revenge felt all the more sweet. But they were hard scenes to get through, and less sanitised -rightly - than Hollywood's usual salacious version of the same awful crime.

The Dad; the monster - all hairy of body and thick of muscle, was the 'ogre under the bridge', with his two daughters' 'trip, trip, tripping footprints' above - the beast that could burrow out of soil with his bare hands. The best movie monster since Karloff did Frankenstein.

Regarding accusations of misogyny from some critics towards the film, I can only report back that the usherette I sat next to (I was on the aisle seat, she was perched on the stairs.. at least I hope she was an usherette and not something more sinister) munched sweets and chuckled throughout the screening (actually, beginning to think she was definately something more sinister now!) and there was also a question from a young female fan at the Q&A after the movie to the director that started with her saying how much she loved the movie and the bloody ending (that was very reminiscent of a sprawled Tim Roth from Reservoir Dogs, with most of the cast writhing on a slick of their own blood on the tiled floor of the local drug baron's villa while shooting at each other at close range) and even said she found the film 'sexy' - well, the scene between one of the daughters and the married man in the motel room was a rare moment of fairly consensual steaminess and the two girls did ooze a certain sexuality when chasing through the jungle after the poor henchmen of the local drug baron who didn't know what was about to hit them between the legs!

Within the Woods was an unnerving, unexpected, vibrant, hip, very bloody, gun-toting, great-Grimm fairy tale of a gangster movie with horror edging, that I think will result in more head-swirling films from this young director, Patricio Valladares - who is clearly a real, unpredictable talent to witness and wait for.

Valladares hinted at Frightfest that future films will be more crime based, less horror. Which is (when you take away such dreamlike, surreal additions as the feral cannibal brother kept locked up in a room by Dad and released by the sisters) what this film is at heart; a really quite brutal but sly crime movie in a heady, nightmarish, adult fairytale setting. It's a genre all to itself. It's what a Frightfest film should be.

dt
facebook: markgordonpalmer
blog: http://markgordonpalmer.blogspot.co.uk
Last edited by damatotomato on Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:48 am, edited 7 times in total.
Wolfshade
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2008 2:57 pm

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Wolfshade »

Had the right horrible storyline to be a deeply disturbing movie but somehow failed to pull it off, and despite all the countless abuse/rape/prostitution/dismemberment scenes it really was never shocking at all...mainly because of the awful charateristation - you never feel anything for the girls and the story about the brother being brought up as a radbid wild animal was just done laughably. Not so much a hard watch as a tedious watch.
Kris
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:18 am
Location: Royton, Oldham
Contact:

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by Kris »

Wolfshade, my thoughts exactly
Horror fan and avid tea drinker, to discuss the merits of all of the Friday the 13th movies over a nice cup of Assam. Contributor to http://www.realreelscares.com
DavieT
Undead Horde
Undead Horde
Posts: 260
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:32 pm

Re: Hidden in the Woods

Post by DavieT »

Dire Dire Dire - a chunk of my life I'll never get back
Post Reply