Black Forest

Syfy doesn't always put out the greatest movies, but this one is much better than some give it credit for. It was definitely better than some they've put out in the past five years. I am not giving away the story line, so if you want to know more about the film then watch Ben Cross's interview about it on the Syfy site.

His description about throwing a grenade into the "fairy tale" mix is quite accurate. It is his portrayal of the villain Cazmar that makes it worth watching alone. As usual, he makes any project he puts his name to shine. I love how he used the Irish accent for the character too as he delivered Cazmar's lines.

What I thought was totally disrespectful was the fact that IMDb totally left him off of this cast list and listed him for "The Human Factor" as Creighton--which he does not appear in. I know this for a fact. Shame on you for not fixing this before "Black Forest" was released...

So we settled in with our Chinese Delivery for SyFy Saturday its become a ritual of sorts sometimes it last less than 30 minutes as we lose interest and start channel surfing however this weekend was different they debuted two movies and of the two this was by far the best. We really enjoyed the movie it really tries to make the best of every cent of its miniscule budget with decent performances, interesting twists, and special FX which could of course have been better are not as bad as some. My partner is not much of a fan but he sat thru it all and I have to say I would watch it again since I missed some bits and pieces as I devoured my dinner and we talked about the storyline. Sadly the film that came after this one was so bad we both went about other activities. One other thing of note we enjoyed their use of flowers to add a fantasy like sense of color in contrast to the forest it was a nice touch considering the budget you can't have all these wonderful sets and cgi to enhance so it was great old style filmmaking making the best out of what you got and being inventive I can still see the colorful mushrooms growing in the forest.

I admit I dislike most of SyFy's movies, and was not expecting much watching Black Forest. However, while it was not exactly a great movie, it was one of SyFy's better and more tolerable efforts.

SyFy does deserve kudos for thinking up such a good and original concept, a real departure from the typical creature, disaster and fantasy films dreamt up that a vast majority of the time are badly done. I enjoyed some scenes, my favourite being the seven cannibal dwarfs attired like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, though the scenes with the spiders from Little Miss Muppet, the Troll Under the Bridge and the Witch and her Gingerbread house also stood out. The acting while nothing extraordinary was a notch above other SyFy efforts(where it feels phoned in or shockingly bad such as recently Annihilation Earth), with nobody toe-curlingly bad really. Ben Cross looks as though he is really enjoying himself as villain Cazmar. I also loved the production design, especially that for the forest which is rich in colour.

However, some of the characters still annoyed me, by all means they are not as blatantly stereotypical as some of SyFy's other movies(in in disaster movies like Miami Magma or something like that) but there are at least three that struck me as too stupid to live sort of characters. Also, while the concept was great and there were some scenes that were memorable and surprisingly satisfying, the overall story at times has a very scatter-shot feel and there are some scenes that don't really make much sense. The dialogue is on the cheesy and lame side, and while the effects are miles above effects seen in Titanic II for example, I got the sense that a lot of work went into the production design but the lacking budget caused the effects to not have the quality they could've done.

Overall, one of SyFy's better efforts but still flawed. 5/10 Bethany Cox

If you like Scifi movies, then this is actually a fantastic movie to watch. For a free movie, with an attractive individual and a good story, what more do you really need. I suggest this movie to anyone who likes Grimmy type things. This is a movie that can either make you think, or that you can brainlessly watch. Beware though, there is some gore, but you know it is coming so it isn't shocky gore. If you are one of those people who get queasy or have their children watch movies with morals just be aware. If you can find this without commercials then it would be better as some of the commercial breaks are annoying. Overall a good movie to watch. Much better than some other Scfy movies.

Another SyFy bad movie. The idea is interesting, but the movie is terrible. At least, some scenes were so, so bad that made me laugh.