The mere mention of a Brit Horror flicks always grabs my attention. It is always good to see some home grown horror finding its way to our shelves. Dead Wood has a familiar set up 'Group of friends meet with trouble in dem der woods' the post credit sequence leads you to believe its going to be another of those Slasher in the Bushes flicks.
Be it Hoodies in the hedges, or Jason's in the Juniper bushes, these stories, to my mind, are as well worn as the forest paths the hapless characters in them tread en-route to their doom. (On that, is there some Freudian reason why the preferred mode of transport in Woodsy movies is the old VW camper van? Where did this start?? Texas Chainsaw? .... Answers on a postcard)
Dead Wood, thankfully opted to take the path less travelled. The story has a smattering of Blair Witch, with a liberal sprinkling of Evil dead and the now, almost obligatory, stylistic nod to the Asian horror scene. None of which is a bad thing in my book. Dead Wood sees the group of couples and would-be couples being stalked by a supernatural force rather than a purely physical one and that at least made for something a bit different. What that supernatural force actually was I never fully understood. I'm thinking some kind of vengeful spirit of the woods, Guardian type demon. (The ending certainly points this way) Either way it was a refreshing angle and was for me the films most notable feature.
Unfortunately, in terms of execution Dead Wood fell way short of its promising set up. The pace felt disjointed, the acting was for the most part extremely gringy. Dead Wood has a big cgi moment which I'm sure the creators agonised over. It probably took a lot of time and money and for me didn't really pay off. I would have preferred to have seen more attention spent on the performances. I don't know how the dialogue read in the script but the on screen delivery felt ... dead wood-en. (Sorry) Seriously though, each time the performances grated I found myself 'ejected' from the story and that's a real shame because I wanted to be lost in that forest with them, feeling all the fear that the interesting premise had set up. But every time a character bumbled their dialogue I was forcefully reminded I was watching a film, a construction. And one which at times was down right shoddy.
To be fair there clearly wasn't much of a budget to work with on Dead Wood. It was filmed almost entirely outdoors which must have been challenging for the film makers. But in the final analysis most of us can only judge Dead Wood by what ended up on screen. And in this case the supernatural premise of the story was sadly let down by the final execution. All that being said I'd be interested to see where these guys go next.
2 out of 5.