Of course I had never even heard about this 2023 movie titled "The Astral Woods" prior to stumbling upon it here in 2024. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and give writer and director Issac Rodriguez's movie a fair chance.
The storyline from writer Isaac Rodriguez was adequate enough, though the narrative was somewhat slow paced, and that sort of made sitting through "The Astral Woods" a bit of a test of wills. There are elements to the storyline that really prove to be interesting, just a shame that the narrative was so monotonous. You have to sit through about half of the movie, up to the point with the sequence of odd flashing lights, before things start to pick up. And by then, it was sort of too little, too late.
I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but I will say that the acting performances were good. Leading actress Alexandria Payne (playing Liz) and leading actor Marvin Ritchie (playing Shawn) definitely carried the movie quite well. The movie has a very, very small cast ensemble, so there was additional pressure on the actors and actresses to perform well and carry the movie, and they did so effortlessly.
The cinematography throughout the course of the movie was good. There was lots of nice shots and great locations in the forest, and director Isaac Rodriguez seemed to have an eye for capturing that, adding to the overall mood of the movie.
All in all, not an overly bad attempt at a movie, but personally I wished that it would have been a bit more eventful.
My rating of "The Astral Woods" lands on a four out of ten stars.
