New On Demand and digital download from Uncork’d Entertainment!

SOMETHING IN THE WOODS (2022)

Directed by Alexander T. Hwang.
Written by Deanna Gomez.
Starring Nicole Cinaglia, Robbie Dias, Vienna Hayden, Dakota Jans, Kevin Keppy, Jared Rivet

There’s something in the woods and it likes to feed on people. A pair of women flee after a home invasion to look for a safe haven from a wendigo-like monster that infects people with it’s bite and claws with an insatiable hunger.

SOMETHING IN THE WOODS is bare minimum filmmaking. I get trying to make a low budget movie, but when you only have the cash for computer generated animation that is a skosh more realistic than Saturday morning cartoons (do they still have those?) then why not just use the cash to make a decent practical monster. Numerous scenes show this beast ambling about the forest barely paying attention to shading, gravity, or realistic movements. The creature kind of looks like a homeless elf with extremely skinny and elongated arms. Even while there might be some scenes where the monster might have been scary, seeing it CG animated murders all shock potential. I guess this film does have a person dressed as the monster in some scenes, so I don’t understand why they used the bad CGI in the first place and just went with that the whole time.

The cast is decent. Nicole Cinaglia plays a selfish influencer, but does the job well. It doesn’t make for a character one might feel for, but she is a decent actress. As is her co-star Vienna Hayden who plays a disgruntled daughter of a corrupt politician. So there is some talent behind the film. Unfortunately, the bad CG distracts from this film being effective at being what it is supposed to be effective at—a horror movie. I did like the final scenes where we understand just how this curse is passed from one person to the next, but that’s me straining to find something worthwhile in SOMETHING IN THE WOODS.

Check out the trailer here!!