Beyond the Woods

A character in the movie was not the only person tortured- it was torturous watching this movie. Too bad it had potential.

I viewed this film at a festival in Vancouver, BC and was transfixed from the start. The word that comes to mind, first and foremost, when I think of this film is... REAL.

It is not a flashy action movie. There are no jump scares or moments of hilarity... this film tells a real story about life and one that we all could EASILY find ourselves in.

Believe me.

We are all just a few poor choices away from this.

I was engrossed. I enjoyed this and I hated it at the same time. Because it was real.

Definitely not perfect, which is why I have rated this a 8/10. At times the screenplay is on the nose and the dialogue drags... but so does life.

This is worth watching.

Really slow at the start and doesn't accelerate too much. I was tempted to turn off almost instantly but wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. This then lead to me feeling that I had to finish just because I had started, not because I was particularly entertained or engrossed.

Felt very low budget and some of the scenes were unbelievably long in one shot and dragged out with very little dialogue.

The emotion felt a little forced, the acting was not entirely believable and Andrew was trying too hard, it just came across as boring.

The music was too loud over the dialogue.

A couple of positives though, I did start to feel empathy for Jack and his scenes especially with his sister were the highlights.

However, I would definitely not endure again.

This could have been a great movie...but it went nowhere. Imagine...walking in the woods...hoping to see a dinosaur...you're ready...excited...here it comes!!!! And then boom..it's a squirrel. But maybe it's a squirrel doing ninja things, prepped to take on another squirrel dojo. Unfortunately, it was just a squirrel sort of standing there, you looking at it...him looking at you. You both know there's nothing cool that's going to happen, but just incase you stare a bit longer. It poops, does what you think is a grin and moves along. That was a lot like this movie.

I hope all of the investors of this waste of disk space went broke. They are definitely in the wrong business. A visual wasteland.