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Devil in the Woods
UK 2020
produced by Peter Goddard, Gemma Wilks, Ash Moulton (executive), David Rogers (executive) for Snapped Fibula Productions
directed by Terence Elliott
starring Francesca Howe, Tim Faraday, Dani Thompson, Amy Joy, Alec Sleigh, Daniel Wale, Gemma Wilks, Nicholas J. Pearce, Cari Payne, Dean Jovi, Caitlin Marsh, Glenn White, Jamie Dowing, Ashley Moulton, Ioanna Tsoupra, Joe Feeney, Alan Downie
written by Terence Elliott, music by Andriy Sovetov
review by Mike Haberfelner
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All Tessa (Francesca Howe) wants is to finish top of her filmmaking class,
but not all of her classmates she has an assignment with to make a movie
are in the same boat: Sure, Julian (Daniel Wale) is pretty much in love
with her and goes with whatever she says, but Jenny (Amy Joy) and Chris
(Alec Sleigh) are pretty much incorrigible stoners who try everything to
avoid making an effort, as a consequence leaving all the hard work (as in
scripting) to Tessa, and when she delivers the script, they suggest to do
a found footage horror flick instead, basically because it can be shot in
a night - and Tessa just lacks the self-confidence to stand her ground.
Meanwhile, down at the police station, Officer West (Nicholas J.
Pearce) and Senior Officer King (Gemma Wilks) wonder whether it's worth to
put a missing person's report out on a young man (Glenn White) who has
probably just skipped town, and while discussing this they happen upon an
old story about the guy's uncle, a homicidal maniac who many years ago has
hightailed in into the nearby woods, and has never been heard of again, so
the official story is he's been swallowed by quicksand - only there's not
an iota of proof for that.
Tessa, Julian, Chris and Jenny meet in exactly those "nearby
woods" to shoot their movie, but have a big fall-out. But once split
up they have to realize they're followed by masked figures - who turn out
to be homicidal maniacs. Only Tessa makes it back to her home alive, but
once there, she's (figuratively) not out of the woods yet ...
British horror regular Dani Thompson plays Tessa's sister, TV and movie
veteran Tim Faraday her father.
Ok, first of all I need to clarify, even if this is about
youngsters making a found footage movie, this fortunately is not a found
footage movie itself, instead a character-centered piece of slowburn
horror that might not tread any new ground in its approach to the genre,
but has a nice build-up that doesn't give its game away a few miles in
advance but works towards its horrors in a comprehensive way while still
managing to surprise the audience time and again - especially in the
finale that turns everything onto its head, with a resolution that in
itself is already reason enough to watch and like the movie. This
movie will be released January 8th 2021 from https://www.vipcoltd.com/
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