Review of Woodshock (2017) by K Nife C — 26 Nov 2017

Woodshock is the cinematic equivalent of wandering around the house, stoned, looking for keys. That's not just a metaphor, there are multiple sequences in this film of Kirsten Dunst just wandering aimlessly through a house, stoned, looking for things, fiddling with stuff, then getting more stoned. At least she moves though, the other characters just stand in place or sit there looking sad. One would think it's a modern Reefer Madness done in homage to Twin Peaks. As cool and funny as that might sound, it's fairly insufferable the first hour. The acting is just terrible, not as much from Dunst, but definitely from Pilou Asbaek (who some might recognize as Uncle Urine from Game of Thrones) and Joe Cole (who was rightfully given a less substantial role in Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room). As for the plot, the semblance of it is as follows. Dunst and Asbaek work at an experimental marijuana dispensary, they've developed, or at least solicit, a powerful hallucinatory cannibinoid strain that plays with reality and may lead to death. Dunst's boyfriend is Cole, a lumberjack. Multiple dreams/fantasies/hallucinations ensue.

So here's, like, my analyzations, or thoughts or whatever about it.

Everybody either cuts down trees or smokes and sells trees dude. Lotsa doobage, but it's totes depressing bro. I think that that's, like, probably, like, the deeper meaning, or whatever. Like, lighting up a joint and getting high is like getting shocked by wood, like trees, tree wood, man. Getting high is weird. Wood is weird. And the main lady's name, Theresa, it's like, trees...uh. She's high. Get it? I know, right? Stay with me. Okay so, like, the movie starts and she's, like, sparkin' up a J with her mom, and her mom totally croaks, and she's sad. Death's a bummer. Then her coworker is like "You look like your mom". And she's, like, tripping all the time. You can't tell if she's like stoned, or awake, or dreaming, but her BFs like, "You gotta take care of yourself". But what if the stuff with the BF is, like, a flashback, and all the stuff with her coworker dude is, like, right now after her mom died, and then, like, the whole movie is her remembering her life disjointedly while her mind is, like, decomposing from doing the killer weed shit that killed her mom. Shit's deep, dude.

I'm guessing that the critically acclaimed fashion sisters, directors Kate and Laura Mulleavy, saw Lars von Trier's Melancholia and thought, "I bet we could make a trippy, depressing movie too, right after we get done designing the latest fall line for Target.".