Review of Don't Go in the Woods (2012) by Robert B — 09 Sep 2012

Don't Go in the Woods (Vincent D'Onofrio, 2010).

If I started this review with a pithy comment about exactly where Vincent D'Onofrio went wrong with Don't Go in the Woods, his first (and, if there is any justice in the world, his last) feature-length directorial effort, we'd end up being here all day, because there are very few things about this movie that are not wrong. But there's one place that does stick out in my mind where it went very wrong indeedâ"that moment where D'Onofrio decided to take this rather boring slasher film (whether it is a remake, reboot, reimagining, whatever of the 1981 film of the same name I could not tell) and make it a musical. Yes, a musical. Up to a certain point, it could have easily been a bad horror movie about a rock band who go off into the woods in order to get their heads clear and write some new material. There's music involved, of course there is, but it's not a âmusicalâ? in the sense that the music is integrated into parts of the script where it would not normally be. Band members playing songs and singing, huzzah, and a bunch of groupies and girlfriends and the like have followed them up from New York and gate-crashed the party, which makes lead singer Nick (Matt Sbeglia) angry, for what should be obvious reasons. He blows up and one of the girls stalks off...and starts singing a riff on one of the songs that was just played while walking through the woods. Oh, god, movie, you did just hit a new low indeed. That would be enough to give it a low rating (it is saved from the lowest because a few of the singers are actually quite good; unfortunately, the guy who plays Nick is not one of them) by itself, but then comes the climax, in which Our Director attempts to come up with some ambiguity, but does so in such an inept, ham-fisted way that the viewer is likely to end up scratching his head wondering what on earth Mr. D'Onofrio thought he was doing. Which is a valid approach to the entire film, actually. *.