Danielle (Nancy Feliciano) finds herself in the woods, totally naked
and with no recollection of what has put her here or who she is.
Eventually though, she finds some cloths, and a note that partly brings
back her memory: She was the mistress of Charlie (Phil Herman), who
dropped her to go back to his wife and kid. she blackmailed him though in
at least paying her an allowance, then confessed their affair to Charlie's
wife though in a fit of rage - which prompted him to rape her. But that's
not enough, obviously Charlie has drugged and kidnapped her, and now he's
playing his wicked games with her, as everyday she wakes up, she finds
herself in a different situation, often nude, sometimes even tied up, and
she feels she has to be constantly on the run from someone who never shows
himself to her ... Only gradually, Danielle starts to remember more and
more, until she remembers killing hersel ... but that can't be right, now
can it. With Danielle gone for weeks, her best friend Cindy (Tiffany
Sinclair) grows increasingly worried, so she calls Charlie to look up on
her, since she knows he still has a key to the appartment, and he finds
her dead, complete with suicidenote and everything ... So what happened? Click
here to open the Spoiler Pop-up! Into
the Woods is a very clever piece of genre cinema: It starts out as
your usual survival movie, with a mystery plot thrown in just for good
measure, and that's fine, especially since the movie's powervul lead Nancy Feliciano is more
than capable of carrying the film. However, there comes a point where
writer/director Phil Herman doesn't seem to be interested in just making
another (well-crafted) genre flick anymore, and in the final ten or so
minutes, he turns the film's whole plot on its head and at the same time
ties up all the loose ends. And while this is a device that often destroys
an otherwise good film in the hand of others or ends up being a tiresome
cliché, Herman manages to pull this stunt off just beautifully and go off
into another direction with his movie you would not have expected ... yet
it makes perfect sense. A pretty interesting and above all highly
enjoyable film indeed.
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