Delight
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Karenita
This is, quite possibly, the worst movie I have ever seen. I watched it to the end which was nothing short of excruciating. I wanted to make sure I didn't actually miss anything - good. I didn't. Not a single scene had ONE redeeming quality. The acting, by everyone involved, was terrible. I don't mind a slow burn of a movie, hand held camera work, etc. But this movie is painfully boring, pointless, aimless and ridiculous. I saw some people comparing it to "The Blair Witch Project." but let's be fair. That movie was creepy and good and unique (for its time). Comparing "Spirit in the Woods" to it is like comparing a perfect apple to a rotten orange. Skip it.
sadzombie
Do you want to know how many times the characters in Spirit in the Woods say "I think I saw something", only to pan the camera over and reveal nothing except for trees and... more nothing? Just nothing. A lot of nothing. That's a rhetorical question, because I won't go back and lose another hour of my life counting. It's an adequate summary of this... I don't know what you would call this, actually. I'd like to say "movie", but things tend to happen in movies. Even if they're boring, you can walk out discussing something about it. What did or didn't work for you. Nothing - and I mean nothing - happens in this... er, sequence of moving images. So the lowdown here is that Anthony Daniel asked himself, "Remember The Blair Witch Project? What if I did a movie like that, but like, without the tension or anything?" Then he went to Kickstarter, told people he had a good idea for a horror movie, and some of those poor, misguided people gave him money they like, actually worked and stuff for, and then he took that money, and turned it into an hour of footage of a bunch of people walking in the woods. It's an often heard criticism that nothing happened in The Blair Witch Project. It was build up to a non-ending. The same argument is often made for other found-footage flicks, such as Paranormal Activity. People talk for an hour or so, occasionally something weird happens, and then the climax. Roll credits. The difference between those movies and Spirit in the Woods is the burn. Whether they worked for you or not, these movies spent the duration of their runtime gradually turning up the tension. Whether Blair Witch affected you or not, you could sense emotion in effect on the camera. The characters begin to panic, they argue, they despair. In Paranormal Activity, they gradually become more accepting that there is something happening in their house, and how they emotionally deal with it. In Spirit in the Woods, they talk. Much like you and your friends talk. Generally about nothing. That's it. One character may, at times, whine that they want to go home, but that's it. It was a bold choice to just make a movie devoid of energy or tension of any sort. I mentioned the characters often saying "I think I saw something", yes? That's what we get, in place of slowly building dread, or even cheap jump scares. Not once, not twice. Repeatedly. The movie telling us something MAY be there, but it's not. I even looked hard, just to see if maybe something was hidden on screen. During it's final fifteen or so minutes, when something FINALLY happens it's out of nowhere, and earned for no other reason than the movie is almost over and the money is almost out, and we still don't see anything. The camera freezes, or the footage gets shoddy, muddling our view. Imagination, in a horror movie, can be very effective. Minimalism works because the human mind will fill in the blanks, often more effectively than you could by telling them the answer. It worked in a movie like Blair Witch because we knew damn well that whatever was off screen when they screamed "What the f*** is that?!" was sure as hell there. The movie provided just enough along the way for our mind to fill in the rest. Spirit in the Woods gives us a few rambling ideas of what it's mythology could have been after the fact, and nothing along the way to make us afraid of what may be around the corner.Like The Blair Witch Project, Spirit in the Woods is, I gather, based on some existing folklore and ghost stories. Do yourself a favor, and don't watch this movie. If you want to watch this movie, go watch The Blair Witch Project instead. It's literally the same thing, but with pacing and tension and all those things that make a movie interesting. If you STILL want to go watch Spirit in the Woods, then do me a favor, and keep a running tally of how many times they say "I thought I just saw something", because I'm honestly curious how many times they blatantly admitted there was nothing on screen.
lucindablackdragons
Right from the trailer, I knew I was being subjected to garbage. This movie is complete bilge. I have seen YouTube videos made by teenagers and college students that were less amateur than this movie. The acting is terrible, it looks like it was edited on iMovie by an 8 year old and it looks like it was shot on a freaking cellphone camera. I'd be less than surprised if Anthony Daniel just pocketed the money, got a few people who were willing to work for free, shot it on an iPhone and edited it half-assedly on Windows Movie Maker, because the funding I know for a fact that he secured should have at least paid for a good camera and good editing software if he was using it right. That amber alert poster looks like it was made on Paint. The improv is so unnatural that it makes me want to set myself on fire. The pacing is god awful. Nothing happens until the very freaking end and even still, I don't know what in god's name I'm looking at.There's really not much else to say. The movie is garbage and that's all there is to it.
sam_hunt
This movie actually made my head and body hurt because of how bad it was. The script is terrible the acting is awful, and I'm pretty sure in some early scenes some of the actors were laughing.... I'm assuming because they themselves couldn't believe they agreed to this. The bet part of the movie was the trail they were on in the beginning. It's pretty. Reportedly the budget for the film was 6k, and in my opinion you can make something much better than this. The Blair Witch Project had a very low budget as well and to this day is still one of the greatest "found footage" films recorded. I am a huge fan of found footage films and wish more were being made, however if they are all like this from now on, the genre is doomed.
