Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror
Films Blog, 2013
Images from the Internet
Central Film Company
Fade to Black: Films
79 minutes, 2008 / 2013
www.centralfilmcompany.com
www.myspace.com/eyesofthewoodsfilm
www.MVDvisual.com
Images from the Internet
Eyes
of the Woods: Unrated Special Edition
Directed by Darrin
Reed, F. Miguel Valenti and Mark Villalobos (latter for special edition)Central Film Company
Fade to Black: Films
79 minutes, 2008 / 2013
www.centralfilmcompany.com
www.myspace.com/eyesofthewoodsfilm
www.MVDvisual.com
During 1547, at the Puritan settlement of Knobs Creek (73
years before the first historical Puritan
settlement in 1620) in an undisclosed location (though filmed in the Zaca Lake
area in California), a father grieving for his dead young daughter turns away
from God and makes a pact the devil. The end result is he is turned into a flesh-eating
demon that kills off the whole town.
Flash forward to “now” and we see a group of five
30-year-old college students who are out for a camping expedition, and of
course stumble upon said locale and creature.
Mostly, this is not a great film, honestly, with nearly
no character definition other than one obnoxious dude and a stoner goth-ish gal
(she wears black lipstick). Everyone else is exceedingly vanilla, and the
viewer is not invited to like or care about any of them. This is the biggest
flaw of many of the kids-go-to-woods-kids-get-dead genre.
There is an interesting use of a plot trick that would later
be employed by 2011’s Grave Encounters,
where the territory keeps changing – one minute there’s a lake and then it’s
not there, for example – throwing our annoying group for a loop as they can’t
find their way out of the woods / fields / meadows / leas. They wander around
for literally days with no food, no water, and apparently not much of an
appetite. Heck, they don’t even get dirty, even though after the first night,
they don’t even have a tent and sleep on the ground.
And for most of those days, nothing happens. Well, at
least involving them. There is a topless woman wearing only underwear and
covered in blood walking around in a trance-like state that is never explained,
and a couple of other campers who are lost that find the inevitable and oblivious
bad ending. But mostly it’s wandering and complaining, wandering and complaining.
I was sorely tempted to hit that chapter skip button, but I didn’t. Someone
reward me.
But, and this is a big but, as bad as the center section
is, the first and last 20 minutes is worth watching. The extended “origin” story
is exceedingly well handled (though the acting is wooden, and the men’s
costumes laughable), the creature looks great in these sections (not as much in
the middle), the gore is top notch (again, in the bookends), and the editing
bright and brisk without being too flashy. I would happily watch that sequence
again.
Also, the ending act, where the demon finally decides to
go all Jeepers Creepers on them,
almost looks like it’s from a different film. Even the stock looks different, with
the middle being grainy (possibly video), and the beginning and end looking
digital.
Like the saying “there are known unknowns” (originally said
by the traitor, Rumsfeld), the ending is a bit of a surprise, but not really. You
know something’s coming, and you have an idea what, so that even when you’re
not sure, you are still sure enough to know when
to expect it, if you follow horror films in the last 20 years.
So, if you manage to get your hands on this DVD, don’t
just toss it. Watch the beginning until we meet our modern troupe, and then
skip to the one hour mark and start watching again. Don’t, however, go to the
chapter list, because it will ruin what little surprise there is (really? You
show the ending in the chapter list? Duuuuuude!).
There are no extras. Boy, I’d hate to see the regular
edition to this film if this is the special one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=967t2YeSn3k
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