Redwood

Was drawn into seeing 'Redwood' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing and creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for the genre as said many times. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Redwood' is a film it doesn't do enough with its potential (although there are far bigger wastes of potential in film) and could have been much better. 'Redwood' is very weak with a lot of big problems. It certainly could have been far worse, considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre at best and terrible at worst.

Lets start with the positives. The setting is atmospheric and spooky and 'Redwood' could have looked far worse visually, was expecting a cheap looking film and to me that wasn't the case here.

'Redwood' has some creepy moments early on.

Albeit, there is nothing new here, the film doing nothing fresh with something creative in concept. The second half also takes itself far too seriously and gets incredibly idiotic, a very completely different film feel here. Far too much is revealed too early too, with the opening sequence giving almost everything away that it kills the suspense. The creepiness dissipates completely fairly early on, with the horror, suspense and tension being nowhere near enough. Things start not making much sense and gets silly, with one of the most ludicrous and easily foreseeable endings ever. The acting is not amateurish from the leads but is weak from the supporting cast and laughable for the cheaply rendered and far from threatening vampires.

Further issues are that it was clear that it was written in haste. There is a very rushed and careless feel to the story, especially in the second half where confusion and choppiness can be found in editing and narrative, and the underdeveloped and scrappy script with far too much talk likewise.

Then there is some padding and aimlessness that also gives the film a dragging sensation. The characters are flimsily developed, annoying and bland, the direction lacks focus and the music and sound editing are far too intrusive and obvious. Nicholas Brendan's role and inclusion were pointless.

Overall, weak with not much going for it. 3/10 Bethany Cox

A couple go into the woods for a camping trip and are told to stay away from the gray zone areas and stick to the green zone. It's pretty simple, really, but you know how these things turn out - in a moment of stupidity and after being warned a couple of times the guy's like, "Hey! I know, let's take a short cut!"...Next thing you know they find themselves in vampire territory.

Very Low-budget horror where the fear is generated by a combination of over-acted emotions and creature screams. You don't see much of the creature and when you do they're extremely lame and cheap. The only thing that saved this for me was that it wasn't a found-footage film. I saw the 6/10 rating so I was expecting something good but I ended up very disappointed.

Such an interesting idea for a movie but it fails in everything it tries to achieve starting with the dialogue. This script, given to the right film crew could really be a good, creepy little film...But nothing happens for at least 50 minutes. During some parts of this movie, I actually laughed out loud. example; You're in the woods and you see creatures approaching, so what do you do? You hide in your tent for security! COME ON? Why did someone ever think this film would work, as it stands. IT COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD!

I'm not sure what is worse in this film, the story or the acting. Both are fairy bad but I think the acting might just edge it because in some parts it is nothing short of terrible, to the point I wasn't sure if this was meant as a joke. If you made this or was in it and watched it after completion and thought you had done a good job you really need to consider another line of work. I gave it 3 stars out of sympathy and think I was over generous, don't waste your time with this, it's poor.

What an absolutely awful film. All those involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. It wasn't scary and the plot was terrible.