Witches in the Woods review: A group of college friends find themselves fitting the elements and the unknown after their car breaks down in those titular woods.
Witches in the Woods
With a title as unfussy as Witches in the Woods, even the most casual horror fan would have a stab at what a film with such a title would be about. Witches. In a wood. And, on the surface of it, the ingredients all seem to be there for a supernatural teen slasher with a nasty old woodland dwelling witch wreaking havoc on a bunch of suspecting young adults.
We have a group of friends, made up of new lovers, ex-lovers, lovers in secret and a girl dwelling with a severe case of college humiliation, all decide to head out on a snowboarding trip. When their van mysteriously breaks down whilst they’re lost on an alternative route to their chalet, the tensions in the group soon become exacerbated by growing threat of freezing to death, and the hint that something else may be at play.
I shan’t spoil anything here, but Witches in the Woods does quite play out to the beat that you’re expecting. What could be a straight-up supernatural slasher movie ends up becoming more of a chamber piece, focusing on a group of individuals who have headed out into extreme conditions with severely unhealthy ties to each other.
The characters contained in the van all have their secrets, and all feel a little out of key with one another. There’s so much tension ready to boil over that you begin to wonder why on earth these people decided to go on holiday together. It’s heightened drama that becomes more and more chaotic as the group finds themselves lost with no reception and without really any clue about what to do in such a situation.
With the group dynamic as icy (pun very much intended) as it is, director Jordan Barker begins to play with our expectations of the ‘young people lost in the woods’ play-book of horror. As the situation becomes more dire, and the characters become more and more suspicious of exactly what is causing all this bad luck. There’s enough back and forth between logical explanations and something more inexplicable that has us guessing just as much the gang as to just why everything is going so awry.
The performers who make up the gang do well with the material, knowing when to play their roles more dubiously, leading to a great deal of fun during the moments when the group becomes more and more convinced that something, or at least someone, is making matters worse. The only issue with the performances comes down to the fact that the film is a little too eager to convey that all is not well in the group. If a little more patience was had in building up and revealing the fissures within this group, this could have been just that bit more compelling to witness unfold.
Witches in the Woods could stand to be a little bit more leisurely in its pacing. A tightly packed 90 minutes, you can’t help but feel Harper is keen to play with your expectations more and find other ways of toying with your perception of what is going on. As it stands though, what is on display shows great potential from both cast and director, with the visuals also adding a nice sense of claustrophobia and danger in the wintry surroundings.
Witches in the Woods has great fun toying with what you may be expecting from a horror film of its kind. While it could benefit from a little more patience, it still proves to be an effective slasher mystery. A smartly written thriller with a few more surprises in its boot than initially meets the eye.
Witches in the Woods was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
