W lesie dzis nie zasnie nikt

Do not expect an Oscar winning Polish slasher and you'll be fine. The movie is quite enjoyable if you like slashers like Wrong turn, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. The movie is a good mixture of all of them. But best of all, made in Poland. Great achievement. On the other hand, it is predictable and not original, but who cares. So, if you love slashers or good B-horror movies, this one is for you. Enjoy! 🔪

Thanks to Netflix I've gotten to watch several Polish films, admittedly all horrors, and of the ones I've seen, I've enjoyed them all. Nobody Sleeps in the woods (to be lazy, and use the translation,) is really rather good.

It's true, there isn't really any new material here, but what is done, is done well. Very much a Polish Wrong Turn, with a bit of Cabin in The Woods mixed in. It takes a bizarre twist, when we learn how things came to be, and there are enough shocking moments.

A few times we hear points about how it is for people in Poland, being gay etc. It seems that the writer and producer wanted to make a few points.

Clichés apart, rather good. 7/10.

I can only assume the person who came up with this film idolises American cliché 'horror' movies, as it's not only predictable but hovers close to the realms of dreadful.

The good and the bad:

• Very cliché. Group of teens in a wood with gruesome killers.
• Predictable. You know exactly what's coming up, what will happen and it will attempt to have a twist at the end.
• While it hovers close to the realms of dreadful, its doesn't go into Them. Despite the cliché and predictable outcomes, I watched it to the end.

Horror standards are all in this movie, including: The pretty girl, the 'fat kid', attempts at recognising the 'already done genre', "don't split up, people always die when they split up", a cabin in the wood and the classic 'policeman is killed'.

The film feels like a Polish attempt at trying to make a horror and wrongly using the American format. Had they focused on how the Japanese make horrors they would have stood a vastly better chance at improving on this.

Just watching a random YouTube video tonight about "5 Most Not Talked about Good Horror movies" and this was #1. The second he mentioned this movie I never heard of before, I stopped the YouTube video and went straight to Netflix to watch this. I AM SO GLAD I did. This In-the-wood slasher is every-bit the quintessential slasher from the 80s without bothering to do another homage every few scenes. Enough with the homages! Just glad they just made another clone but with great effects, fantastic characters, plenty of gore and kills and mostly shot in daylight, which is ballsy and wonderful simultaneously. Not 100% perfect - the exposition got a little too easy, like they didn't have faith the audience could put the pieces together and the reason behind the killer was...well, meh. Still, HIGHLY recommended.

***

Final thoughts: "Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight"? Well, to be fair, I did see main character Zosia sleeping in her tent. The others, no evidence.

Under the layer of an archetypical slasher movies there's a strong political statement that some people fail to recognize. The story of two twin brothers is a clear link to "The Two Who Stole The Moon" and that's just a start. Among thrills, chills, blood and boobs almost every dialogue scene criticizes the nowadays Poland; the lack of tollerance, the pathologies within the catholic Church etc. But at the end of the day it's a well crafted, well acted, fun film.