The Woods - And Bruce Campbell

The front cover of The Woods reads `And Bruce Campbell,' so I watched this. Bruce `the chin' Campbell is a legend, providing one silly, tongue-in-cheek performance in horror films after another. However, it's worth noting he's barely in this and, when he is, he's not saying much.

The Woods is about Heather - a young girl who gets sent to a private school by her (seemingly naturally) evil mother and silent father (Bruce Campbell incidentally). There, she gets picked on by a clichéd bully and starts to wonder if her teachers have ulterior motives for the pupils.

The teachers mainly stand around in groups, facing the same direction and staring - always a sign that they're up to something. One occasionally twitches. This may be trying to add `character' to them, but if you can watch without laughing you're a more composed person than me.

The Woods is like a kind of remake of Italian horror classic `Suspira,' as it's about a girl starting a new school run by witches. Soon, Heather's classmates start disappearing (luckily their parents don't seem to ever bother much that their children have vanished without a trace and nor to the police). The film's pretty slow, but deliberately so, doing its best to built tension and get to know the characters.
There's nothing particularly wrong with The Woods, apart from the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new. If you've seen a reasonable amount of horror films, you've basically seen this. It's nicely directed, the sets are fitting and it picks up pace towards the end. I just felt it was too little too late.

Give me Evil Dead any day.

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights