Review: Grim Woods

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

Grim Woods (aka The Book of Nightmares)

Directed by Ryan Byrne, Danial O’Brien

Ace Studios / Silver Spring Pictures / Cyfuno Ventures / Wild Eye Productions

85 minutes, 2017 / 2019

https://www.wildeyerelesing.com/

It seems like I have come across quite a few anthologies lately. Luckily, I love horror shorts, so bring it on! Amusingly, the credits play around with images for films like Human Centipede and IT. They know their audience.

Rather than being hobbled together, this film is three dedicated shorts, created just for this release. The wraparound has to do with campfire tales from a tome found tied up in Northern Ontario (where this was filmed) at Camp Elmwood by four camp counselors made of two couples who are totally devoid of personalities other than that Jody (Sarah McBain) is a smoker, nerdy Frank (Ryan Hatchy) stutters, leader and hipster Michael (Steven Skeggs) has a ponytail/potential man-bun, and Natalie (Shaylan Spurway) is horny. In this “Book of Nightmares,” as one of them calls it, is the stories that are read aloud, which of course make up the three tales of which we are presented.

The first is called “The Clown,” which follows a tired premise, but takes it in a different direction that I did not see coming. In a rural setting, Riley is babysitting two brats, one of which has a full sized creepy clown doll in the closet named “Freakshow.” It really is disturbing looking, and I’m not scared of clowns. It’s no surprise that Freakshow comes to life with knife in hand to do some mayhem and general slashing about.

Just when you think it’s merely another killer klown from terrifier regions of ITsville, it takes a sharp turn (I wrongly guessed the conclusion) that gives it a breath of originality with which I was truly impressed. In an age when the genre is neck deep in clowns (and zombies, as I’ve said before), it’s nice to see a slight twist of the knife.

We return to the wraparound campfire between tales, but turn back for number two, “The Gypsy’s Curse.” At a traveling fair, a gal with very white teeth and her douchey beau go to see the old gypsy fortune teller, who does not give a reading like the young woman is expecting about her future. As an aside, once in my life I dated the assistant to one of these psychics, and they will say just about anything to scare you to buying more “magic” because, well, that is the way these things work. “Oh, there is a curse on you; give me money and I will give you a potion to help.” Like modern computer SPAM, there is either a phishing threat or a promise of reward to have you bring out the wallet.

The why and how is left open. It’s more the why of the last scene, which again is supposed to be a surprise but is easy to see coming, yet the reasoning for this conclusion is unexplained and is annoying for that reason.

There are some interesting touches here and there, such as the red and green-focused lighting, and the editing is decent, but there are too many things left unanswered, such as school mates’ reactions, and just not going to the doctor right off the bat. I don’t want to give away too much, because this story didn’t say enough.

“Siren’s Call,” the final full tale, is loosely based on the Greek mythology (sans Odysseus), this time taking place in a Scandinavian forest (I missed if it was Norway or The Netherlands), with three (figuratively) ugly American backpackers – two male, one female – traveling the area on their way to Amsterdam after a rough college term. They don’t seem to get along very well, and are kind of obnoxious to the locals. They decide to get some excitement by walking through the forest in the middle of the night (saywhat?; there are wild boar in them-thar woods that will literally eat you alive after sundown). But they meet something so much worse (no, I won’t say).

While kind of obvious what is going to happen and by whom, it’s still a fun story though not necessarily scary or brilliant, despite the twist at the conclusion. Speaking of which, the wraparound story comes to a nice sum-up that was actually quite satisfying to me.

Let me be clear that the acting in this is generally terrible, though the players are quite attractive. This film is filled with many novice performers with this being their first IMDB listing. That’s easy to tell. The first story is clearly the best of the three, with the wraparound having a better ending than the build-up. But this is pretty much a first feature for the two directors, so hopefully this will be a positive learning experience for their next shoot.

Not fer nuthin’, the images are shockingly sharp and look great, with decent lighting throughout, which is a bonus. There are also some lovely drone shoots scattered throughout. The tales could have a bit more bite, with some stand-out dialogue to support the stories, which is missing. “The Clown” proves that there is potential here, and I’m holding the directors to that.